felidae

ACC

The 1-1 draw against Happy Valley was adequate enough for the team and the staff. However the fans weren’t too happy. The opinions section in the newspaper had many wanna-be managers pick apart my team selection and tactics. I had to admit to myself that if I wasn’t the Home United manager, I would probably be one of these people who wrote in. But one thing they said was true though, we had missed many good chances to kill the game off. Most of the time we were just shooting blamks and the defence was day dreaming at times. I just hoped that we could improve for our next match against Pahang in Malaysia.
My parents were visiting my sister in Canada so I couldn’t ask them to make a long trip to Pahang just to see a 90 minute football match so I had my old friends Irene and Vivian as my guests to the game. They were happy to be seated at the VIP section of the stadium. While they were getting seating I was in the team dressing room giving my team talk. I let the players know that they had to win this game to show everyone that we could handle the Asian teams. I also told them that we had to take every goal scoring chance that came up. This time I decided to try a 4-3-1-2 formation that was bordering on attacking football. It was soon time for the match to start and the players were lead out while the staff and I walked over to the away dugout. The stadium was packed and it reminded me of the old Malaysia Cup days. The referee signaled the game to start and off we went.

To be continued…… 

retired_rkp278

Oh great! A Singaporean story!

I'll be following this closely.

felidae

Thanks. I will try to update as often as I can.

felidae

The referee whistled and the match had started. I knew we already had one draw and we had to win the other games to get a chance advance to the next stage. The chairman told me that the format of this competition was simple. The teams that ended up first in a group went to the next round and the second placed team with the most number of points would follow the first placed teams into the second round. I wanted us to be that one second placed team if we could not end up first place. I was jolted out of my daydream by a ball that had hit the roof of the dugout. One of the Dempo midfielders had to clear the ball to prevent Jiayi from getting it. We were pretty much camped out right outside their penalty area at this point and the defense was holding the line very well, passing the stray balls to the midfield and in turn they passed the ball to the forwards. Unfortunately, the forwards were having shooting dysfunctions and could not get the ball into the net.
This continued until the 80th minute. Both team were equal as far as shots on goal were concerned however none actually hit the target. The in the 83rd minute, Dempo’s Khan, a defender, decided to play with the ball and he went one on one with Sahdan. He started to make a pass but he miss-hit the ball and it literally landed on Sahdan’s foot. He then drippled the ball past Khan and crashed the ball into the net. 1-0 to Home United!!!! Finally a win in the ACC. That’s how the score was until the end of the game. Next up was the game against Amrokgang at home. I just hoped we didn’t waste our chances in that game too.

felidae

“Nooooooo!!!!!! Pass the damn ball!!!!!!!” This game was not going as planned. I had told the players that we needed to win this game to even have a chance of getting to the second stage of the ACC. We were on 10 points heading into this game and we had to win it in order to cement our place in the second round. In the 80th and the 85th minutes the opposition sliced open our defense and scored. We finished the game 2-0 and we were out. The only second placed team that went through was a team from Group B with 13 points. The players were disappointed but were let down because of poor passing and wild shots on goal. I locked the dressing room door and gave all the players an earful. “We dominated the game and still lost!!!!! What the hell is wrong with you lot?!?!??!!”. I could see that some of the players have become very nervous and a few were getting a bit angry because of my outburst. I told them that they had to get their act together and at least win the league or else I would be making sweeping changes to the team in the close season. After that I just stormed out of the dressing room and into my office. I turned uop the A/C and sat down to think about the current situation. I needed to get a cheap attacking midfielder and another striker as cover. I called my chief scout and asked him or one of his subordinates to scout the island for a cheap and dependable player. He said he will get back to me within two weeks. In the meantime, I decided that I had to change tactics for the rest of the season. Although I like the 4-3-3 formation and the 4-4-2 formations I was using, I decided to try the 4-5-1 for the rest of the season. Although it was a formation I had little faith in, the players just never fit into the other formations. I had called one of my Assistant Managers, Roslan to my office. I told him that Sembawang just called. They had fired their manager and they wanted him to manage their team. I asked him how he felt about going out on his own and managing his own team. He said that he would love to manage Sembawang, and he thanked me for telling him about the opening.

“Hi Mr. Hossain, could you please meet the chairman and the board in the conference room in 10 minutes?” It was the chairman’s secretary and I told her that I would be right there. I was wondering what it could be and then 10 minutes later I had found out. They were not at all happy with the weak showing against the teams in the ACC. They had assumed that I would be able to bring a fresh perspective to the team and they were unhappy when we were not able to get to the next stage. They told me that the team had to improve in the league or else they would have to take drastic measures. I told them what I had planned to do as far as tactics and the formation was concerned and they said that they would leave it all to me.

That night I met up with Irene for dinner and told her what was going on. She said not to worry and that eventually everything will work out itself. She also said that she got a job at the club too; as the second physiotherapist. She said she was keeping it a secret until she had actually gotten the job. But she has been assigned to the youth team and since the youth team trains with the first team, I would be seeing here almost everyday; which wasn’t bad at all.

**To be continued and concluded.

felidae

S-League

The league was going to be interesting. My first time managing a football club and the first few games was already going to be against some of the heavy weight teams. I had the honor of going against SAFFC, Young Lions, SAFFC and Tampines all in the first few matches. The newspapers were saying that by the time of the fifth league match, which was against SAFFC, I would b in a really bad position as manager. Fortunately, they were wrong. Home United thrashed these so called “heavy weights” and now they papers were full of praise for the youngest manager in the S-League. The Tampines manager wasn’t too happy though and he has commented on the paper that the referees favored us anyway and that we were just lucky to win our game against them. He had said that he next time we met on the field; he would destroy my Home team. I wasn’t too worried. I told my players to go out their and have fun and that’s what they did against our opposition. They passed the ball nicely while playing a quick and fluid game. Very soon we were attracting higher numbers of fans into Bishan Stadium and in about 4 months time we even had a cheerleading squad; the chairman said that the other teams had a cheer squad so we had to have one too.

The team was on the top of the world and I let the amazing success we were having get to my head. Suddenly we had things go very wrong; anything that could go wrong, went wrong. We had 2 defenders, 3 midfielder and a striker injured; all from the first team. So for the rest of the campaign I had to use a depleted squad consisting of the fringe first team players and the reserve players. Unlike 4 months ago where we were cruising at 1st place and a sure bet to win the title, we suddenly faced a massive injury crisis. This time the players couldn’t string a pass together and we ended up having lost 6 games in a row, including a huge 4-0 loss to lowly Sengkang. Now I faced the pressure of the fans expectations. The board had already told me that they wanted to finish in the top half of the table and now I was at 9th place out of 12 teams. I told the board and the fans that the team was still gelling and that after a few months; they would gel and truly become a great team. They believed me and I told myself I had to do something to start winning again.

I told the players to keep a deep defensive line and to play as they normally do for the last 10 games of the season. I told that we had to at least draw the remaining game if we want a chance to finish 6th or 5th on the table. I also remind the players that if they didn’t give their all in the next few games, I would be making wholesale changes to the team for next season. By this time the papers were already placing me first on the sack list. They predicted that by the end of the season, I would be the first manager to get his marching orders. I was surprised by that though, I still hadn’t gotten a new contract offer and I had no idea if I would even be getting one. For the last ten games the players actually listened to my “threat” and we had won 7of the last 10 matches and drawing 3. We had done better than I had expected. Thanks to surprising and unexpected results from the rest of the teams we had actually finished the season 4th in the league. I was happy as my job was safe for now. “Mahmood please come to my office”, it was the chairman over the intercom. I suddenly got scared and started to think that 4th wasn’t good enough and that I would be getting fired that day.
I opened the door to his office and the chairman was sitting behind his huge desk. He didn’t have an expression on his face so I couldn’t tell if he had any good news or bad news. He said that he was disappointed with how the season went and that he and the board expected us to consistently challenge for the title for next season. He then said that although he wasn’t too happy with this season since we lost the Singapore Cup, the ACC and the S-League; he was still impressed with my first stint as a manager and wanted me to sign a 2 year contract. I would be getting the same wages but my transfer budget was increased to S$230k and my wage budget was also increased. He also said that he was going to improve the training facilities since compared to the other clubs were still not advanced enough. After signing the contract he told me that I looked tired and ordered me to go on holiday until the beginning of January.

That’s exactly what I did. Went home and started to pack. Irene was in Phuket with her fiancée and my parents went to Vancouver to visit my sister, so I decided to visit my now-girlfriend Vivian in Kuala Lumpur. I wanted to enjoy my free time until the players came back from their holidays in mid-January.

felidae

"Hey Mo wake up, you'll be late for your flight" Ah oh I wish I could wake up to Vivians voice every morning. I had to get up though as my flight was leaving in 4 hours. It would take almost an hour to reach the airport thanks to the morning traffic but Vivian knew the roads to avaid. On the way to the airport we started talking about how we liked spending time time together and that we wanted to meet again real soon. I asked her to come to Singapore soon to visit me and she could even crash at my apartment. We soon reached the airport and hugged each other before I grabbed my bags and went to check in. She told me that she would call me soon and then off she went to work.

The wait at the gate was very uneventful. To pass the time I started to read the local paper. It said that Manchester United had made a bid to capture Joe Cole from Chealsea. It had Mourinho saying that the transfer would never happen as he didn't want Cole to play for their rivals and the current league leaders. I envied the English clubs with their huge transfer funds. Even the minnows in League 1 had a better transfer kitty than Home United. "Ah well!! Have to make do with what I have". I also reflectd back on my first season in charge of HUFC. It was very exciting for me. I had to show the board that I can make United challenge for the top honors next season. I knew that my honeymoon period was over and now the fans wanted a team that could win the S-League title again. My personal plan was for the team to be challenging for the ACC and the ACL in 10 years time. I had told the chairman about this and he said that he would support my plans for the team but we had to "hantam" all the teams in the league next season. I told him that I would try my best. As I was reflecting, it was time to board the flight back to SIngapore and a little while later I was finally back to my second home. I took a taxi back to my apartment and noticed that I had something like 20 messeges on my answering machine. I couldn't be bothered with checking the messeges now. I just wanted to lie down again and spend the next few hours just relaxing before the start of another hectic season.

A few hours later I got up from bed and listened to the messeges. It was mostly scouting reports about some gems that were uncovered from the local schools, the South East Asian countries and some relatives in Bangladesh were asking me to put their chicldren on trials at the club. One messege was from Irene saying that her trip went really well and one messege from the chairman asking me to come in tommorrow morning to discuss transfers and other things. I sat down and looked through last seasons coaching reports. There were about 6 players I wanted to get rid off as I felt they did not give anyhing at all to help the team improve. These players were Bel, Hanafi Zain, Faizal Fadil, Azhar Baksin, Mohamed Coker Junior and Zuhaili Suib.Now I needed to inform the chairman of my desicion and then send a fax to all the managers offering them the services of these players.

The next day, I went to the meeting with the board where I informed them which players I wanted to ge rid off. They had some good news for me saying that they have started the upgrade for the training facilities and it shoudl be done soon. They also said that my transfer budget for the new season would be in the region of S$250K and the wage budget would be S$47.5K per week. They said that the League had faxed me a copy of the new fixture list and it should already be there in my office. They, however, told me that I would be starting the new season against SAFFC, Gombak United and then the Super Reds. They wished me luck for the coming season and again gave me their full backing. I thanked them for their time and went back to my office hoping that I got some replies from clubs about the players I offered to them. I went into my office and was suprised to find that I indeed did have some faxes with offers for teh players I put up for sale. And best of all, al the bids reflected the values of the players. So I told the players invloved about my decision to sell them and that offers for theor services had already been received. They of course were not happy but they had no choice since I told them that if they didn't sign contracts with these clubs I would forever play them in the Home United Reserves. In the end Bel left for Mogi Mirim of Brazil and the rest had signed for Gombak United in Singapore where they were promised first team action. Now I had to bring some players in who would play for the club and I was looking for someone with no international caps as I was also hoping that they would play for SIngapore one day. My ex-manager at he shoe store I worked at in the emailed me about his neighbour. The neighbour was a 17 year old boy by the name of Andy Maughan who played in the same team as his son. He was a good player with an eye for goal and he told me that Andy could be a really good player if he were to develop his skills competitively. I asked my ex-manager to send me a video tape of his games and I showed i to my chief scout and assistant manager. They both agreed that the boy had the raw talent but it would take some time for him to develop. I emailed the boys father and told him that we were interested in wanting him to sign for us. Although he was a bit hesitant at first but I told him that we would even enrol him in the American School in Singapore so that he can continue his education while he was training and playing with us. With his signature captured I proceded to bring in another player that my scouts had highly recommended. He was an Indonesian attacking midfield player called Irfan Bachdim. My scouts had told me that he could be signed on a free transfer and thats exactly what I did.

With all the transfer activity done for now, I turned my attention to the fixture list. I wanted some friendlies before the regular season started so I talked to the chairman and asked if he could set us up with a tour of Indonesia. I still believed that the best way to develop my team's skills was to pit us against the best in Asia. A week later, I found that friendlies against Bangkok Bank, KTB, Tobacco Monopoly and Chonburi were set up. In addition, after the tour of Indonesia, we had friendlies against Admiralty and SAFSA of Singapore. Now, all I could do was wait for the season to start.

felidae

Friendlies

“And please welcome to the field, Home United of Singapore!!!!!!!!!” The announcer was shouting over the PA system. The stadium was packed full of people for our first friendly against Bangkok Bank. I was to keep the same team I had finished the last season with but I put the new buys on the bench. Idros was out for the final part of the season since he was injured and Jung-Sun had got back a loan spell from one of our feeder clubs. I told them that they would be starting the match. “Go out and just enjoy yourselves”, that’s what I told the players. But I think they were enjoying themselves a bit too much. We had some shoddy defending and we were shooting at shadows. Eventually we succumbed to a 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Bangkok Bank. It wasn’t the greatest of results but we could have done a lot better.

Our next game was 3 days later against KTB and we started great against them. We defended well but we still couldn’t score at all. At half time we were still 0-0 and this continued until the 88th minute. Lewis went to grab the ball from the KTB attacker’s feet and the guy just dived in the penalty box. It was so blatant that I thought the referee wouldn’t be fooled by that acting. Next thing I know, he gave Lewis the red card and he left the field dejected. By this time I had used all my substitutions so I had to put Idros in as a substitute goalie for the penalty and the dying minutes of the game. The poor boy had no chance. The ball was slammed into the right side of the goal and KTB had scored!!!!!!!!! It was 1-0 to KTB until the 90th minute. Despite the one goal loss I was happy for the players. They had played good defensive football and I made a mental note to inform the coaches that they should also concentrate on the attacking and shooting training as well as the defensive training. For the last two games against Tobacco Monopoly and Chonburi, I opted to include our newest additions to the squad and they were very instrumental in United kicking their asses. We beat them 2-0 and 3-0 respectively.

So far the friendlies were going good. We have had 2 wins and 2 losses in Indonesia and we were set to return to Singapore tomorrow night. To celebrate, the older players went to a KTV lounge to celebrate a successful tour of Indonesia. I warned them that there must be no “funny business”. I didn’t want to see their pictures in the paper or anything doing something stupid. Plus I gave them a 2AM curfew with the punishment for breaking the curfew being that they would be fined by the club and they would have to do super extra training. Needless to say, no one came back to the team hotel late. I didn’t go with the other players to the KTV lounge, instead I just stayed and relaxed by chatting with my assistant manager and the team captain in the hotels lounge. The next day the team trained for a bit and then we were on our way back to Singapore.

The Straits Times had an article about Home United and how I would find the second season in charge even harder than the first. They said that I had to start winning games and only then would I have a chance of winning any silverware. They had put my team’s chances as very minimal and predicted that we would finish 3rd in the League. For me, finishing 3rd in the League was not going to be good enough. I wanted to use the 2 friendlies in Singapore to show others what we could do. The games against Admiralty and SAFSA were going to be our jumping off point. And we did show against them and on our best days, we could thrash any team. We had won both games 8-0 and 7-0 respectively. Although they were not the elite teams in the league, the wins gave my team the confidence boost they needed. The papers thought nothing off the wins and still said that we would have a very tough time. The other managers were also taunting me in the media saying that we were a hopeless team. I fired back saying that at the end of the season, it would be Home United that will be crowned champions of Singapore. With the players I had now, I really did believe that we could grab the S-League crown.

felidae

"Are you sure you want to do this?' I asked O'Connel. My assistant manager had just received word that one of the League One teams wanted him to be their manager. It was going to be a step up for him but I was trying my best to ask him to reconsider. Eventually, the lure of managing a team in England was too much for him and he decided to call it quits after only one season in Singapore. Although I wasn't really happy about this turn of events, I did wish him all the best in his new role as a manager. A few days later he was gone and I went on the hunt for a new assistant manager. Although there were some really good managers in Singapore, most of them did not want to come to Home United without a big pay boost. So I did what any desperate employer would do. I put out an advertisement on the ‘net looking for a decent assistant manager. One of the names that replied was a guy called Adie Shaw. He was the assistant manager of MK Dons in the English League 2. He agreed to be the assistant manager of HUFC after I told him that it would be a different challenge being the assistant in a foreign country and this was a chance to prove himself. MK Don's weren't too happy about an unknown team and manager poaching their assistant but there was nothing they could do. A few days later, he signed on as the HUFC assistant manager and he had another pleasant surprise for us. He told us about a young player form the US who was in the MK Don's youth team called Ben Taylor. He told me that Taylor had a great future ahead of him as a central defender. I knew that I had one for place for a foreign player in my squad and I offered the boy a youth contract. At first he refused the contract but then I gave him a full time contract and told him that he would be backup to the first team. And thats all he needed to hear. He signed on a few days later and he came to Singapore with his mother as his dad was working in the UK.

"No way!!!!!! ****!!!!!" I couldn't believe that I had been such an idiot. Mr. koh told me that the S-League had told us that we could not play Taylor in the new season until we got rid of one of our foreign players. The league rules say that any team can have 4 foreigners however I forgot that I already had 4 foreign players. I was told that there were 2 options available, I could either release one of my foreign players or send Taylor back to the UK. I didn't want to do it but I decided to get rid of my only Korean player. I called him to my office and told him that he was surplus to requirements as he hasn't been developing at the pace we hoped for. I told him that he was a great talent and we would do everything to get him another club in Singapore since he was already settled here. A few days later he was transferred to Korean Super Reds FC for S$5K. However, during the contract negotiations I had insisted that there be a clause in his contract that stated that we would buy him back for a fixed price of S$16K. My thinking was that in about 4 to 5 years time he would already be a Singapore citizen, hopefully and then we would buy him back. However, anything can happen in the future so who knows. I decided to make two more transfers for the season. I successfully bid for Tengku Mushadad and Emmanuel Emuejeraye and with that I was done with my transfer for the entire 2008 season. Now it was time for the new S-League season to start. I knew I had to do better than last season.

Singapore Cup

This was the first trophy of the season that I wanted to win. The first game was going to be the preliminary match against our rival, Young Lions. The match was very spirited with many shots on goal from both sides. We were 3-0 up by the 40th minute thanks to goals from Indra Sahdan in the 10th, 12th and the 33rd minutes. For the next few minutes before Half time and injury time we just lost it and Young Lion managed to score two brilliant goals to make it 3-2. I knew anything could happen and in the second half it did. In the 50th minute, Khairul Amri scored for Young Lions and the score was tied 3-3. The fans liked the game being played now because both teams kept on attacking. Finally we broke the deadlock in the 63rd minute thanks to Sahdan again scoring a super goal and then in the 72nd minute Shi Jiayi decided to get a piece of the action and make the final score a great 5-3 to Home United. Our fans were dancing in the stands. Even the sometimes critical newspapers hailed our performance. I told the players that they had to keep this performance if they wanted to win some silverware.

Its sad though how quickly players forget what I told them. A few months later was our S-Cup Quarter Final first leg against Woodlands. By the way we started the match I knew we were going to be in trouble. Woodlands Agu Casmir broke through our defense and shot into the net in the second minute of the game. We were already 1-0 down. This time their fans were ecstatic and our fans just sat quietly down. After half time we were much more improved and managed to score a scorcher from outside the penalty box thanks to Emmanuel. The 1-1 score line would stay until the final minute. Agu just waltzed in our area without anyone defending against him and he once again managed to scored a well placed shot against us. The match ended at 2-1 to Woodlands and we had to hope that we would perform better at the second leg.

But again we managed to commit football suicide. We passed the ball around, defended well but, for the life of anything, we just could not score any goals. We were lucky though as Woodlands had two goad ruled offside so at least we weren’t thrashed over the two legs but once again the S-Cup had eluded us. All I could do in the dressing room was tell the boys that we had the players to win the trophy but we just have to try harder for next year. "At least we still have the league to play for" I told myself.

felidae

S-League.

The latest season had already started and I figured that I would continue to use my favourite 4-4-2 formation. I had all the players I needed and we were ready for the new season to begin. A few days before the first match I had a talk with the staff and we decided to change our training schedules and select a new starting eleven. This was all done in the hope that we could improve our league position this season instead of ending up 4th again. I had a talk with the chairman after our staff meeting and told him that my goal this season was to finish at least 3rd in the league. I wanted to take it slow and steady and with the new players in my disposal, I knew that we could do it.

The first game of the new 2008 season was going to be against SAFFC and this was going to be a tough match against one of the favourite for the title. The game began in typical HUFC style with us being on the back foot for most of the time. I don’t know why the team does this. We could have attacked from the get go but kept on losing possession everytime. Eventually we did get back in the game and managed to fire some superb shots at goal with none of them going in though. Then we got lucky in the 90th minute. Andy crossed the ball into the box and then a goal mouth scramble ensured. Sahdan managed to just get to the ball in the chaos and taped it just over the goal line. Not the most spectacular of goal but a goal is a goal. We won the first game of the new season. I was hoping that this was a good omen.

For the first half of the season we would go on to dominate the league. Most of the time we were in first place and about 18 points away from the others. But that’s when our luck ran out. Out. Suddenly we had an onslaught of injuries to wingers and strikers and even 4 of the players got the flu. Lewis, our goalie had an unexpected injury and had to be out of the game for 2 months. In this time we saw our lead dwindle to just 3 points by the month of October. During the crisis, I tried to make the best of things and even picked a combined fringe and reserve players team. They had managed to do most of the work and we were now at least drawing most games. There was one bright spot during our injury crisis. I found one gem of a player in our under 18’s. Since Lewis was out of commission I decided to give 17 year old Hasbullah Azman a shot between the sticks. And he was really good for a 17 year old, with really good positioning and reflexes. He even managed to same a few penalties, something even the other keepers had yet to do. Eventually he managed to push Lewis out of 1st place as our goalie and he took up the position for the rest of the season.

Lewis wasn’t happy that he was dropped to the bench but he took it in his stride. I told him that Azman had a lot to learn still and that Lewis would be the perfect one to tutor him. We had now entered the last month of the season and we were still only a point away from being second in the league. I just hoped that our luck would hold out.

**To be continued and concluded.