60 youth footballers get up close to national players

FOOTBALL

adidas football clinic
Friday, 23 November 07 at SAFRA Tampines

Story and pictures by Leslie Tan. © Red Sports

60 youth footballers from all over Singapore came face to face with nine Singapore national footballers last Friday at SAFRA Tampines.

Starting at 9am in the morning, the players were divided up into smaller groups and rotated through stations manned by the various players. Soon enough, they were all sweating from the exertion as the national players put them through the drills.

“It’s a great initiative to get the national players to meet the public. I got to mingle with them and some of these football drills are pretty new to me,” said Muhammad Bin Kamarudin, a 16-year-old centre back with the National Junior College.

“I spoke with Aide and Duric and they were very personable,” said 18-year-old Pavan Mano, also of NJC. “At first Duric looked very intimidating but he is straightforward and gives good advice. But there was no enough time to ask questions though.”

Another participant was See Wee Yang, a 19-year-old goalkeeper of Meridian Junior College. “Aide Iskandar, Isa Halim and Razeleigh Khalik left a deep impression on me, teaching me one to one very enthusiastically about how to do things right, giving me tips like how I must be on my toes and how to position my body sideways. They were very sincere and friendly and really impressed me. I felt that some parts of the clinic could be improved like allowing the keepers to spend more time with Hassan Sunny and Lionel Lewis as goalkeeping is a very specialised skill and different from the outfield players. But i enjoyed myself to a large extent in the various stations nevertheless, learning from the national players and listening to their expert advice and tips.”

With a huge contingent of players from Victoria Junior College and National Junior College present, it was clear that these were a serious bunch of school athletes. “We didn’t make it to the semis this year,” said Pavan of his NJC team. “That’s our goal for next year. We train four to five times a week, with three sessions on fitness and two on ballwork.”

Another keen participant was Abdul Munaf, a 17-year-old fan of national goalkeeper Lionel Lewis. Said a gushing Munaf:

“While talking to Lionel about his life in soccer, what he told me was when at the age 12, he started playing soccer as an outfield player and he switched to goalkeeper at the age of 14 when he was in secondary 2. When I reflected back, my life in soccer was same as him. What it means is, my ambition is just around the corner. I support most of the goalkeepers like Nelson Dida, Peter Cech, Buffon and many more. But there’s one goalkeeper who inspires me to become a goalkeeper and I always support him all the way – and that’s none other than Lionel Lewis. When I was talking to him, my heart feels that I’m talking to my big brother. When I was young, I would always say to people that I wanna play for Singapore as a goalkeeper like Lionel.”

Added Munaf who is trying out for the Geylang U-18 Centre of Excellence (COE) team: “People laughed at me saying that I’m not fit to play as a goalkeeper and I’ll not have a chance. But Lionel said to me that soon I’ll have the opportunity. I feel great and happy the moment Lionel said that to me. It doesn’t matter how tall or how short am I, as long as I’ve the guts and talent to play as a goalkeeper, I’m ON!! Another thing, Lionel’s birthday is on 16 Dec. So I wanna wish him HAPPY 26th BIRTHDAY!!”

National Players at the clinic:

Aide Iskandar
Isa Halim
Aleksander Duric
Hassan Suny
Ridhwan Jamaludin
Erwan Gunawan
Razaleigh Khalik
Shi Jiayi
Mustafic Fahrudin

Editor’s note: If you recognise yourself in the pictures, feel free to let me know your names in the comments section and I’ll update the captions. More pictures in the gallery.