By Teng Kiat
Want local football to progress? Then we need to be more professional, according to Singapore coach Bernd Stange.
That was one of the main lessons the German took away from his Singapore Selection team’s 5-0 loss to Juventus on Saturday night at the new National Stadium, which was the first-ever football match to be played there.
The hosts visibly tired in the second half after managing to keep the score to two goals at the break, despite the Italian champions operating mostly in third gear throughout.
The contrast in quality was stark and Stange believes that the only way to bridge the gap between Singapore football and top-class opponents is to have “full professionalism” in the way players train here and better infrastructure.
“We have players on the pitch today and they are semi-professionals, or close to amateurs,” he said at the post-match press conference.
“They are working the whole week for National Service (NS) and other things; they have a lot of other commitments.
“We have good programs [in place], we have the basic ideas [and] how we want to follow [them] but if players are not available and facilities are poor, it’s very difficult to compare with [teams like] Juventus.”
Read the rest of the article here: https://sg.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/fit-to-post-sports/singapore-football-...