By Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports
Sengkang Punggol has undergone a major revamp of its squad lineup, bringing in a total of 13 new signings, including two Canadians, according to the Chinese mainstream newspaper Lianhe Zaobao (First time bringing in Canadian reinforcements, Sengkang Punggol gets new blood; Tuesday, February 3, 2009).
The two Canadians are namely 24-year-old forward Murphy Wiredu and 20-year-old striker Bahadur Anthony Christopher. According to the report, this is the first time in the S.League’s 14 years that a team will feature Canadians. (On the contrary, a reader provided information that Issey Morgan Nakajima-Farran, a Candian soccer player with Japanese mixed blood descent played in the S.League in 2004 and 2005.)
According to the report, new head coach Jorg Steinebrunner revealed that chairman Ben Lee and he had noticed the two players during a friendly by the Canadian team with the Singapore team last year, and he decided to sign them.
Bahadur is of Trinidian descent and is 1.90m in height. He has played for the Italian Shooters, a club in the Canadian Soccer League and was also apparently the captain for the Team Canada U-20 World Cup team according to several online sources.
Wiredu was born in Ghana and migrated to Canada when he was aged 10. He has played in several countries, including in Canada for the Toronto Lynx and the Italian Shooters. He also played in the United States. He was quoted as saying that when the opportunity to play in Singapore was presented to him, he was more than happy to accept it as the "playing standards in Canada and Singapore was about the same."
Sengkang Punggol was second from last in last year’s S.League table. With these new signings, they hope to achieve a mid-table result for this season. Ben Lim has also confirmed rumours that there were talks in signing national players Mustafic Fahrudin and Indra Sahdan, who was left without a club after a failed attempt to play in the Vietnamese League. He said that he had approached them, but there was no confirmation yet.
Another foreign signing by Sengkang Punggol is 25-year-old Guinean Abdoulaye Djibril Dialo. He was the captain of Indonesian Super League side Persiraja Banda Aceh and he will most probably play in an attacking midfield position alongside Wiredu.
Japanese Hiroyuki Yamamoto was the only foreigner out of four original players who retained his spot in the team.
Head coach Jorg Steinebrunner was the former coach of Woodlands Wellington, and left the team after leading the Rams to the Singapore Cup final, losing to the Singapore Armed Forces Football Club 1-2. After the Rams ran into financial difficulties last season, they had to release several players without compensation, some of them being Jerry Bartholomeusz, Zahil Ahmad, Abdelhadi Laakkad, Yazid Yasin and Sazali Salleh. This most probably gave Steinebrunner a chance to take with him to Sengkang Punggol several of Woodlands Wellington’s key players. Sazali Salleh has since joined Steinebrunner at Sengkang Punggol.
A quick check of the top five finishers of last year’s season saw that each team (excluding Korean Super Reds) featured at least five foreign or foreign born talents. With these new signings, Sengkang Punggol might just create some ripples in the S.League in the upcoming season which starts February 16.
Hi Basil,
Yes you’re right. Italian Shooters is a club in Canada. I got mixed up. Thanks for pointing it out. As for Anthony, I checked several football blogs and the channelnewsasia forum, indeed there is mention that he has been Team Captain for the U-20 team. Indeed this is very contradicting.
Kar-Teck,
I’m not sure about that one. The news article stated that Bahadur and Murphy were the first Canadians in the S.League. I did a check and saw that Geylang United had also signed a Canadian, Rickey Marvin Harris around the same time.
I checked Wikipedia and you’re right! Issey played two seasons for the Albirex Niigata in 2004 and 2005 and was elected young player of the year in Singapore in 2005. He played one game for the U-21 national team of Singapore.
Well well, looks like Zaobao might have made a blunder. 🙂
First Canadians in the Sleague?
I thought Issey Farran Nakajima is Canadian and he played in the Sleague in 2004?
Nakajima certainly have Canadian caps.
Hi Junwei.
FYI, Italia Shooters is a club in the Canadian Soccer League International Division. I am not sure if Anthony ever played for them but Murphy did so last year.
Anthony played for the North York Astros. I think he also played for GS United in the OSL but I am not so sure.
Information on these fellars is sure bloody hard to come by even through Google, but I am very, very sure Anthony has never played for any section of the Canadian national team, even though that’s what he has said. (Bullshitting?)
The Canadian Soccer Association website lists all the players who have been called up to their various teams so far, including the women and the youth teams, but none of them have Anthony’s name on it. Murphy however, has played for the Canadian U20s in two friendlies against the USA which they lost 1-0.