Story by Koh Yizhe/Red Sports. Photos by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports

nike cup day 4 sembawang

Former Singapore international Fandi Ahmad playing a game with the teams. (Photo 1 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

Sembawang Concrete Space, Sunday, June 27, 2010 — It is not every day that youths get to rub shoulders with ex-national football players at a street football tournament. But for participants of the Nike Cup north zone qualifying round, they got the chance to experience just that.

Ex-national players, Aide Iskandar, Fandi Ahmad and Nazri Nasir, surprised the crowd when they dropped by the north zone qualifier of the Nike Cup to inspire the participants. They also played a couple of minutes as they showed off their futsal skills.

“This brings back memories of yester-years, where I played football anywhere!” said Fandi Ahmad. “My football was played without rules at schools or wherever. We just put two slippers on the floor as goal posts and used a plastic ball. The new generation doesn’t really experience this kind of football much so it is a fantastic effort by Nike to organise this tournament.”

“Some might not be good at big field football so this futsal tournament also provides an opportunity for these players. There are really some good talent today and who knows? Maybe one of them might be good enough to play overseas,” added Fandi.

“New tournaments like these always help develop football in Singapore,” continued Fandi. “It encourages kids to just play. You don’t have to have a very strong team. You just need five friends and you can just start playing!”

Participants got the opportunity to snap a photo with the local football stars and for a couple of lucky teams, the ex-national players joined them for a match. Aide Iskandar showed that, despite his retirement as a professional player, he still has the touch. He joined Team Sumz and helped them notch a win.

“We feel really honoured for a former player like Aide to play with us,” said Siow Zhi Bin, captain of Team Sumz. “We totally didn’t expect him to come down and it was a nice surprise.”

“I definitely had fun today,” commented Aide Iskandar after playing a couple of rounds. “It brings back memories of the old days and I think it is a great initiative by Nike. It encourages the young to play football and I hope to see more of such tournaments.”

“This tournament will have a positive impact of kids,” he continued. “It also serves as a platform for scouts to tap on talent and look for good players. After all, even Ronaldinho was spotted this way when he was playing freestyle football!”

“For myself, I do play futsal once a week. It is a great form of exercise and a great way to keep fit,” added Aide.

In the Nike Cup, registration is free and teams of five plus one reserve pit their skills against each other in a five-minute match. The first team to score a goal wins the match and continue to play on court with the next opponent. If there is a draw after the five minutes, both teams make way for two other teams. Draws and losses do not count for anything while a win grants teams a point. Teams play as many games as possible in the allocated playing time to accumulate wins.

The island-wide tournament is separated into four zones – north, east, west and central. Teams are split into two categories – junior and senior. Participants aged 14-16 years old play in the junior division while those aged 17-19 years old play in the senior division. The top 25 teams from each category and each zone with the most points go on to the Grand Finals on July 4th 2010.

The winning team from the senior division gets a one week, all-expenses paid football experience at Brazil national team’s training ground while teams from the junior category are playing for a special training experience with the Singapore national team and $8000 worth of Nike prizes.

Now that all qualification slots have been filled, the Nike Cup heads into the Grand Finals on July 4th 2010 at the National Stadium East Entrance promenade.

nike cup day 4 sembawang

Fandi Ahmand (centre) and Aide Iskandar (left) came to share the fun at the Nike Cup. (Photo 2 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

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