A Singaporean In Australia

They say all things Made-in-Germany last long. I don't know any German girls to verify that claim. For Bernd Stange's case, I am afraid he won't last long. His job, that is.

His face may be unfamiliar to most of us. He is the new head coach for the Singapore national soccer team. Under his charge, we just got a 6-1 thrashing from China. Bad result, no matter how you look at it. 

Stange told Singapore it was his worst defeat in 133 games of coaching career. [link] That's alright. There is a first for everything. We are proud to be that distinction in the German's report card. Stange has to understand something. If he continues to be clueless, he will soon see his biggest career defeat record rewritten. Stange told goal.com he was surprised China were capable of playing attractive football. 

I supposed all of us armchair critic would have known by now that China does not just play chatek anymore. After all they won the overall champion in the last Olympics, which actually meant they were the strongest sporting country in the world. That means they have the resources and commitment to do well and continue to improve in each sport. We know, but our new National Coach doesn't and was surprised China played modern soccer.

Stange should also know it has always been a mystery why Singapore soccer is shit. Even with the backing of that shorty minister who made the term Goal 2010 famous (now notorious), we were nowhere close to improving, much less attaining the lofty goal. The S-League were set up not that long after the J-League  but look where it brought Japan and how much regression we went through. S-League did nothing to improve our football standard. I wonder if anyone hasn't noticed that yet.

We don't have an excuse really. My Afghani colleague was beaming the other day. When asked why that big grin, he told me proudly that Afghanistan just won the South Asia Soccer title beating India 2-0 in the final. [link] Most of us would know that the war-torn Afghanistan has only just came into the football scene. Only barely a decade ago, Taliban was using their football stadiums as an execution ground rather than playing football. And then they won a trophy against an opponent in the final that will beat Singapore as convincingly as China playing, of course, modern football against our surprised coach.

You know what? I was brought up to the world of soccer with tales of "Uncle Choo", the Singapore legendary coach who were said to be able to make players run through a brick wall for Singapore if necessary. I was too young to see Uncle Choo and his lions in action but I know back in the olden days we beat sides like Pakistan 5-0 (I watched it on TV) and achieved respectable results against the likes of South Korea and other stronger Asia teams. Look at how far we have lagged the others.

What can another foreign coach do for Singapore? I thought FAS would have known better what a local coach, such as V. Sundramoorthy may bring Singapore better results because Singapore's soccer predicament is unique. Only the locals know our situation. The others will be simply .... surprised.