My story

[psilord80]

Its time I wrote a proper story on these forums. I am using FM 2007, 7.0.2 database with the Singapore League and the English League (Conference National and above). I am using my real name and my real nationality on here. Sorry if the intro seems a bit long but I like this approach. Any comments are welcome.

“Its been a very long time†I thought to myself as I exited the Singapore Airlines flight. I had been studying in the US since 1999 and I already had my BA and my MBA. I couldn’t find any work in the US due to the fact that I didn’t have a Green Card. So I decided to apply to jobs outside of the US and one of the first places I sent my resume to was a job website that targeted jobs in Singapore. I had moved to this country from Bangladesh when I was 5 years old and I call it my second home, so I decided to come back home once I got tired of working at a Shoe Store part time during my MBA. I also received some favorable replies from companies here and they granted me interviews.

I cleared through customs and went to pick up my baggage. I had one really heavy suitcase. Lucky I shipped the other stuff I had from my apartment and they should be with me in a few days. I had nothing to declare so I just walked past the officer with guns and went into the Greeting Area.

“Oi, Oi Mahmood!!!!!! Here!!!! Here!!!†It was Irene, one of my best friends since Junior College. Since my parents moved to Malaysia, I had no place to stay so before I left the States I asked Irene if I could stay with her and her folks; At least until I was done with the interviews. We hugged and then asked each other how everything was going. Then I took my suitcase and we walked to her car, a rickety old thing, which I was glad to say still had seatbelts. I told her about the job interviews I had the day after and she just wished me good luck. Her parents were still at work when I came in and she showed me to the guest room and I put everything down, took my clothes out and freshened up before just sitting down with her and talking about the good old days. Few hours later her parents came home and we said hello, talked a bit and had dinner. Then I just talked a bit longer with Irene and then decided it was time to go to sleep. As far as I knew, I was going to have one hell of a day tomorrow.

[psilord80]

I had some trouble sleeping because of the damned jet lag. I was still used to US time and night in Singapore was actually afternoon in the US. Tried my best but I finally fell asleep at 2 in the morning. I woke up 5 hours later to get ready for the 1st of my two interviews for the day. Irene helped me to wake up actually; she screamed in my ear “OI!!!! WAKE UP!!!!†Anyway the first interview was with a marketing company that was supposed to help big companies like Microsoft, Google, Dell, etc…. market their products. Sounded good but after I questioned the manager on exactly what type of job it was, he told me I would be selling vouchers from these companies door to door. I told him no thanks and I left. The second interview went along pretty well. It was with the Ministry of Education as they where looking for secondary school teachers. I thought that it would be a good idea to get some real money (finally!!) and some much needed work experience. After the interview I just went for some refamiliarizing with the area. I had been gone for about 7 years and I wanted to get myself reacquainted with some of the places I used to frequent. I had a good feeling that I would be getting the teaching job so I thought that it would be better to get used to staying here once again.

After just walking around for a while, I took the MRT and heading to Irene’s condo. On the way I picked up a copy of the Straits Times from the MRT station and went immediately to the sports section. I wanted to see where my favorite team, Manchester United, was in the league table. It also had some articles about some of the local S-League clubs and one article in particular was saying that the Home United manager was in deep trouble since he finished the season below the boards expected place on the league table. I didn’t think much of that article, all I could think of now was that I would be excited in getting that teaching job and I was imagining how cool it would be to teach kids in my old secondary school. Finally, the train reached my destination and I got off, just then my cell phone started to ring. I picked it up and the voice on the other line was saying that they were calling about an opening for a job at Home United FC. The lady asked if I could come in tomorrow for an interview. I asked what position it was for and all she said that the interviewer would be giving me all the information I needed tomorrow. “It can’t be….†I thought to myself. I looked at the article about the Home United manager and it said that he had signed a brand new contract. “Phew!!†I told myself. “The guy just signed a new contract; it can’t be the manager’s job. Maybe something in the finance department or even marketingâ€. I was really hoping it was marketing. “I guess I will just have to wait until tomorrow thenâ€.

[psilord80]

I could not sleep at all the entire night. All I could do was think about what kind of job I was interviewing for at Bishan Stadium tomorrow. I was really hoping in was some kind of marketing job because that was one of my specializations when doing my MBA. Anyway, I just got out of bed and almost stubbed my toe on the door frame as I was still drowsy. I knew I needed a lot of coffee to stay awake. I took a shower, put on my best suit and tie and left for the interview. The taxi ride took about 20min from Irene’s home to the stadium. Once I got out of the cab I walk to the administration offices to tell them I was there for an interview. The girl at the reception desk let the interviewer know that I arrived and she asked me to wait. About 15 minutes later, a man comes up to me and says that he is the chairman of HUFC, Mr. Koh Siong Ling. He said that he had an offer on the table that he hoped I would be interested in. He led me to the board room where the Managing Director, Chan Kwok Mun and the General Manager K. T. Velu were waiting. They asked me to sit down and asked if I had any idea why I was asked to come in. I just started rambling on about how much I would like to work in their marketing department and I told them I had many ideas on how to improve the marketability of Home United. The 3 of them just laughed and told me that I had the wrong idea about the kind of job they wanted me for. They said they wanted someone with a fresh perspective who has the drive to excel in a managerial role. “Coolâ€, I thought to myself; “No experience and they are offering me a position in managementâ€. Then Mr. Koh dropped a bombshell, “We are actually interviewing for the vacant manager position.†I just sat there looking like an idiot with my mouth wide open. One of them even asked if I was ok. Then they asked me if I liked football. I said that I watch games whenever I have the time. They then asked me many other questions before they told me that they had other people to interview as well and they would get back to me in a few days. Before I left I had to ask why they called me in for an interview since I did not have any experience in managing a football team at all. All they said was that they were looking for someone who can think outside the box and bring a fresh perspective to how the team is managed. And all I could say to that was “OKâ€.

I called Irene on my cell phone and told her about the position I interviewed for. She was screaming on the phone. She told me it was a really good team that won the League title a few years back. I asked her to get on the internet and find out more about the tea. I then called my parents in Malaysia and told them about the job, they were a bit skeptical but they said whatever happens, it happens for the best. I then called a friend in Malaysia whom I knew when I was studying in the US. Her name’s Vivian and I never even told her I was in Singapore. She was happy, although she scolded me for not calling her when I arrived, to hear from me and said that she would love to visit me in the weekend. I told her to come over sometime and we could talk about old friends and just catch up.

Two days passed and still no call from the club although the Ministry of Education called asking me to send in more information like my transcripts from university which meant that they were considering me for a job. Well at least I have a chance of getting a good job teaching. A day later, the female receptionist I talked to earlier from the club called me and asked me to come in the next day. I asked her if I got the job and all she said was that Mr.Koh wanted to talk to me about some issues. She just asked me to come in tomorrow when I again asked her if I ad the job or not. Sighing to myself, I told her that I’d come in tomorrow. I guess she must have felt sorry for me or something because before she hung up the phone she whispered, “You got the jobâ€.

[psilord80]

“Good morning Mahmood, this is Mr. Koh calling. I just called to let you know that I sent a car to pick you up and bring you to the stadium. Let me be the first to congratulate you on getting the manager position at Home United.†I thanked Mr. Koh but I couldn’t tell him that his own secretary spilled the beans about me getting the job yesterday. Anyway, I had to get ready for my “orientation†for the day. I was to be taken on a tour of the grounds, the club house and I was to meet the back room staff and given the key to my very own office. “SWEEEEEET!!!!!â€

The driver came at 8:55am to pick me up and we drove to the stadium. It took about 20 minutes to get to the administration offices and I walked up to the receptionist to let her know that Mr. Koh was expecting me. She let me right into Mr. Koh’s office and the man himself was seated behind a huge mahogany desk fiddling with some paper work. He asked me to have a seat and told his secretary to hold all his calls for the rest of the day. He congratulated me again on getting the job and he had every faith that I would do well. I asked him about my employment paper work as I needed an employment pass to work. He said that the club was taking care of all that and that he had pushed through the required paper work to the Ministry of Manpower and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. I was very surprised that all this was done so fast. He also told me that he would be putting me into some licensing courses that are required by FIFA. But in the meantime I can start to gather up my team of players and staff. “But first things first, here is your contract. It’s a standard contract we have for every new manager that the club hires. I hope that you like those terms.†I looked through my very first contract with an actual football club. Who knew that from wanting to be a teacher to secondary school kids, I would actually be managing a real life manager at a real life football clubs. Anyway, the terms that were on offer was pretty decent for most entry level jobs in Singapore. The contract was from 1/2/2007(1st of February 2007) to 30/11/2007. So I had almost 9 months to make a positive impression to the chairman and the board so that I could get a contract extension. The contract also stipulated that my wages would be S$625 a week. This too would increase based on how the team did at the end of the season. It was a full time contract and, at 26 years old, I think I was pretty much the youngest manager in the league. I thought about the offer and I said that I would take the job and then I signed on the dotted line.

After all the formalities were completed, I shook hand with the rest of the board members and they took me for a tour of the ground. Bishan Stadium was a decent sized stadium for a team of this size. It was similar with most other stadiums in Singapore in that the football field was in the middle with a running track bordering the field. Even now, I can see members of the public jogging on the running track. The total capacity of the stadium was about 7500; out of that, there were 5500 seats for the fans. The training and the youth facilities were pretty basic but I was told that if we did well, the board would consider improving these facilities. “How about the clubs financials? Are we doing ok so far? Will I get any transfer funds?†I asked Mr. Koh. He handed me a manila envelope with all the financial information I needed to know. The club was in the black with a balance of a little over S$2million and I was given a transfer budget of S$110,000. Before I could say anything about the transfer budget, Mr. Koh told me that I was still pretty new to managing a team and once again, if I can do well then he and the board can increase my transfer funds. “Don’t worry; we can still get a few decent players with that much cash.†I then looked down at the other information. I was given a wage budget of S$43.82K and S$27.06K was already used up. After walking around for a while I met with the back room staff. The chairman introduced me to them and they were very welcoming and said that they would help me with anything related to team matters. I asked which one of them was the assistant manager and Mr. Koh then told me that the assistant manager wanted the manager job but he wasn’t really qualified or well liked by the rest of the staff. I told the chairman that I didn’t want anyone working as team coach with a negative attitude and that I would like to offer the assistant manager and another coach, who also wasn’t present a mutual termination. The chairman agreed and congratulated me on my first managerial decision. “At least that would free up some money for wages now.†I thought to myself.

I had little or no connections to the football world. I just knew some friends in secondary school who were good players but I lost contact with them years ago. I made a mental note that I should use “Friendster†to find as many of my old friends as I can. In the meantime I asked my remaining coaches to give me a detailed report on our players all the way from the first team to the reserve and youth teams. It seemed like they were glad that they had something to do. I also took one of my coaches, J. Surachai, to the side and asked him if he knew any good coaches. He said he knew some local as well as some expatriate coaches who needed a job. I asked him to look them up and recommend any good ones. I told him that he was going to be my new assistant manager and I needed all the help I could get. The chairman told him that he would draw up a new assistant manager contract for him tomorrow. Surachai was very happy and thanked us. He then went to make some calls. I then asked the only scout I had to search for any good players in Singapore and I asked him to also look for two more good scouts to work under him. He said he would try his best. As for the rest of the staff, I asked them to draw up some new training methods and schedules for the team. There would be a staff meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the new schedules. “Not bad. In one day I fired an assistant manager and a coach and hired a new assistant manager to take his place, all on the same day. I feel like a real manager already.†I told Mr. Koh. By this time the other board members had left and Mr. Koh showed me my office. It was pretty nice with a window overlooking the pitch. Mr. Koh just told me to relax for today and that he showed me everything he needed to show me for today. He said that the clubhouse was close by and I could get in for free tomorrow after I was officially revealed to the public. Then he said that after the press conference, I would be meeting the players. I thanked him for giving me the job and that I would see him tomorrow.

He then left for his office to take care of some business. I decided to head home after a long day and get prepared for tomorrow. I talked to Irene about the day and then called Vivian again. She said that she would come visit me from Malaysia next weekend. All I could do now was just relax and mentally prepare myself for the days ahead.

[tom69er]

this is BRILLIANT one of the best starts to a story in the forum i've seen in a while. This story defenitly has great potential thanks for sharing and I can't wait for an update

[psilord80]

Originally posted by tom69er:

this is BRILLIANT one of the best starts to a story in the forum i've seen in a while. This story defenitly has great potential thanks for sharing and I can't wait for an update

Thanks. I will hopefully do an update in the next few days. The last story i did seriously sucked. So i hope this one is better. Thanks for the compliment.

[psilord80]

“So, Mr. Hossain what are your ambitions for the club? Do you think that you have a chance at the title this time? Are you getting any new players? Where is your assistant manager?†The guy from the Starits Times was seriously asking a lot of questions. The press conference had started off nicely with the Chairman, Mr. Koh introducing me to the press from the national newspapers and magazines. I did my best to answer questions but I was really getting overwhelmed by the questions being asked. My new assistant manager, J. Surachai gave more detailed answers to the press on my behalf. “Eh Mr Hossain ah, Chee Ah Beng from the Pondan Times, how long do you tink you have this job for?†Without giving any details of my contract away, I just told him that I hoped to manage Home United for a pretty long time.

“Damn that was a long press conference!!†I told my assistant. He said that it was only 25 minutes long. It seemed long as it was my first press conference, but he assured me that over time I will get used to it. He then handed me 3 files full of paper. “I wonder how many trees died for this,†I thought to myself. The first file had a heading that read FIRST TEAM, followed by another file with RESERVE SQUAD and lastly UNDER18’s. I asked Surachai to call the entire backroom staff, even the physio, for a training meeting because I wanted to see what kind of schedules they had set up. My scout wasn’t here; he was still scouring the country for decent players. He said he would get back to me about his findings as soon as possible. I asked Surachai if he found any leads for new coaches. He said that he had some interested British expatriates but they were holidaying now in England but he would let me know at least by tomorrow if they were really interested. Then he left to tell all the staff to meet me at my office.

The entire staff came into my office in about 30 minutes. We discussed mostly training and I let them know that I put them in collective charge of the player’s training. I wanted the youth coaches to recommend some decent talent once we got a fresh intake of players from the academy system at the club. I asked the physio if the training schedule that was set would have adverse effects on the players conditions once they came back to training. He said that the training should be ok as long as we don’t overdo it since it’s only the pre-season now. After talking for about an hour, I asked the coaches to set up the training areas for the players as today was when they came back to the club for pre-season training. As I was thanking them for coming to the meeting, there was a knock on the door. It was the team captain, S. Subramani, coming to welcome me to the club. He was much older then me but he was like the rest of the staff, very welcoming and said that he was there if I had any questions about the squad. I told him that I was actually going to the field and I asked him and my assistant to fill me in on the status of the squad. They said that the team was still disappointed from last season and they badly needed to win something, any cup would do. He also said that they were a few players who were apprehensive about taking orders from a 26 year old with absolutely no experience in football. They then told me that we had a good team this season, at least on paper. We brought in Shi Jiayi, Qiu Li and Kengne Ludovick from 3 of our rival teams and our key goal scorer Indra Sahdan had already recovered form a long term injury and was ready to bang in the goals. These four were the key players, I was told, who maybe able to help us win the title.

I walked with the team captain and my assistant onto the running track where the main squad was seated. The reserves and the under-18’s where seated on the grass. I just told these two squads that I was happy to be there and was hoping that this would be a different time for the club. I then dismissed them and the youth coaches and another coach took them through their training paces. I then walked over to the First Team and introduced myself. I told them that I understood that a few of them had concerns about being bossed around by an inexperienced 26 year old manager but I let them know that we still had to try our best on the field. They then were dismissied and broke off for training. Due to our temporary coaching shortage, I authorized some of the seniour players to lead in the training sessions.

As the players were going through their training, I asked my assistant why we didn’t even challenge for the title last season. He said that the previous coach had insisted on playing a defensive minded, counter-attacking form of football with a 3-4-1-2 formation. All I could say was “HUH?!?!?!?†Its not that I did not understand what the formation meant but I did not know why the previous manager used that formation since we had so many defenders available. I decided to take a different route and suggested an attacking minded 4-4-2 to my assistant manager. He said that the players were not used to that formation but I said that the upcoming friendlies would give them a chance to get used to it. “I hope so†was all Surachai could say. I told him not to worry, if anything happens it would be my fault. He then went off to oversee the training of the players and I took the files full of paper and went to my office to look through them and come up with a tentative first eleven squad. It took me 3 hours but based on the team reports I was given, my first 11 would have to be:

GK: LEWIS, Lionel

DR: JANTAN, Juma’at

DL: SUBRAMANI, S. (Captain)

DC: SALLEH, Firdaus

DC: MAMADOU, bah

MR: SHI Jiayi

ML: QIU Li

MCA: SULAIMAN, Rosman

MCD: ALIAS, Shahril

FC: SAHDAN, Indra

FC: LUDOVICK, Kengne

I handed this list to Surachai and he remarked that this was a decent team. He then xeroxed a copy for himself and took it with him to inform the players. I was hoping that my scout could get me some names of cheap and decent available players. I still had S$110K and I really did not want to use all of it in one season. As I was taking a seat, the phone rang. It was Mr. Koh who called to say that he was faxing me the fixture list tonight with our first S-League game starting in 15 days. I told him that I was heading out for the day so I would appreciate it if he could fax to Irene’s dad’s fax machine. I gave him the number and he said he would send it tonight. Just as I was leaving the phone rang again, this time it was Irene. I told her to ask her dad to keep an eye out for an important fax for me. “Ok I will. You are done for the day right? Lets go for a movie. There are some good shows. Lets go!! Lets go!! Lets go!!†I told her ok and that I would meet her at one of the cineplexes. I hung up the phone, said bye to teh players still milling around after training and headed out to get a taxi to Orchard Road.

I told myself I should enjoy this now because in 15 days, the most hectic year of my life begins.

[tom69er]

nice update im really enjoying it

[psilord80]

I had just received the fax from MR. Koh. As usual, we were going to have some friendlies against various Singaporean sides which included one of our feeder clubs. Police Sports Association was a club in the lower leagues of Singaporean football and they had some good player that I could buy. IT was definitely useful to look through their team and see if there are any players that interest me. As for the friendlies, I called my assistant Surachai to cancel the friendlies with the Singapore sides and asked him to set up a tour of Malaysia. My reasoning was that the only way for me to know the full capability of this team is to put them against tougher opposition. Malaysia does have some good club sides and I was hoping that some of the games would evoke memories of the old days when Singapore used to play in the Malaysian Football League. Anyway, I tried calling Surachai but there was no answer. So I called the chairman and asked him if he could find us some nice opposition in Malaysia. I told him my thoughts on why we should play against some of their sides plus they were really close to Singapore so we didn’t have to travel quite so far away. Mr. Koh agreed and said he would get some decent friendlies for the team by next week.

The next day, I went to Mr. Koh’s office to talk to him about our feeder club. I told him that for some reason we are paying them S$2.5million a year just to be our feeder. He said that they had good players that would be useful to us in the future. “But its financial suicide,†I told him. I told him that I was looking at the financial statements at home last night and noticed that once we paid them that amount next week, we would be in the red. There would also be no way to know exactly when the club would be able to get back into the black. He said that the club was relying on Police SA for most of our newer players. “But getting rid of them for the time being would still keep us financially sound. Once we are in an even better footing we could have them as a feeder club again. But it would be nice to have a feeder club where we have a lower payout for the time beingâ€. Mr. Koh said that he would think about it and that he would get back to me in a few days. I asked him if he had seen my assistant manager anywhere before I left; “Oh yes, Surachai said that he had a family emergency in Thailand and he had to leave last night. He said he would be back in a months time but in the meantime he said that he put an ad out for a new assistant manager and a few coaches online.†I was surprised upon hearing that, “so that’s why he didn’t answer the phone†I thought to myself. I told Mr. Koh I’ll see him later on and left to oversee the players training.

On the training field I told Subramani what had happened with Surachai and even he was surprised. Apparently none of the squad knew. But they were professional enough not to let this news disrupt their training. I asked the other coach, the youth coaches and the senior players how training was going. They all said that the players were fit but they needed some playing time. I told them that would be happening soon, very soon. After talking to some of the players and coaches, I went back to my office and checked my email. I received some decent applications for the now temporarily vacant assistant manager position and a lot of coaching application. I had a few from England, Brazil, Canada and Malaysia. I looked through these applications and I was really impressed with a few of them. I gave a call to some of the applicants that interested me and interviewed them over the phone. For some in was early morning or others were sleeping when I called but they got attentive when I said that I was offering a job to them. After interviewing them for awhile I immediately offered a contract to about five of them including a new assistant manager by the name of Brendan O’Connell. Out of all of the apllicants for assistant manager, his CV impressed me the most. The good thing was that these guys were skilled in their profession so they would get a working pass easily and the best thing of all was that they were all free transfers. Just then my chief scout Fauzi Noor came into my office and said he had some good news. He found two friends of his who were decent scouts but unemployed at the moment. So I could have them for free as well. “What a good day, I got a full backroom staff for absolutely nothing at all†I told Noor.

Noor said there was another reason he came to talk to me. He said that Firdaus Idros wasn’t too happy at Young Lions and that he heard rumours that he wanted to leave. However, the problem was that 4 other clubs were also going to make a bid for him soon. He also said that the new Korean team in the league was going after a talented player called Jung Sun-Bi from Seoul. He was an attacking midfielder who made some real good performances during his trials at that club. I thanked Noor and asked him to get the new scouts busy tomorrow after I and the chairman draw up the new contracts. “I want you to handling scouting our next opponents, I want another to scout Singapore and I would like another to scout the South East Asian countries,†I told Noor before he left.

Then I left the office to talk to Mr. Koh. He was happy that I signed a new back room staff at no upfront cost but he was worried about the wages. I told him that the total wages would a little bit less than S$5000 which still left me way under the wage budget. I then told him that I would be making a bid of S$10K for Idros and S$3k for Jung Sun. After their wages we would still be under budget and I will still have a little over S$90k to play around with. He mentioned that I was really getting into the role of a manager and now he knew that the board and himself did not make a mistake in hiring me. “Oh one more thing, you received your work permit today.†I thanked him for everything and went back to my office. I sent a fax to Young Lions with the bid for Idros and sent another fax to Jung’s representatives. I got a reply from them in a few hours and both replies were positive. A few days later the chairman and I gave the two players long term deals and better wages. Then the club held another press conference where we unveiled the Idros to the press as our newest player. I had mentioned that we bought a very talented South Korean player and that he would be arriving next week. Then the chairman mentioned that mentioned that the club would be touring Malaysia starting at the end of the week, Our opponents would be FELDA United, Shahzan Muda, Kelantan and finally Kuala Lumpur. I was surprised that he managed to get these fixtures so fast. He also told the press that after consulting with me, he had decided to drop Police SA as our feeder club.

After the press conference, Mr. Koh said that he was sorry he did not let me know about the friendlies earlier but he thought that these were the best opponents he could find in a short space of time. But he said that now he is giving me full control over team matters including friendlies and choosing feeder clubs. He said that he would have a list of potential feeder club next week. I then went back to my office again and made a call to the Korean Association of Singapore and told them about the Korean player that was coming to play for us. I told them that he was coming with his father but he had no place to stay and I thought it would be comfortable for him to stay with a Korean family here in Singapore until he could adjust to staying by himself. The lady I talked said that they could help me out with that and that one of their representatives would be there at the airport with me to greet him to Singapore. I gave them the flight details and said that I would meet the representative next week then. It was time to head to my temporary home anyway, my temporary home being Irene’s apartment. The whole day was so hectic that I just closed the door and crashed onto the bed.

[psilord80]

**sorry I made a mistake in my last post. I meant to say that I wanted top call my ass. man. to get him to cancel the friendlies but I could not reach him. So I called Mr. Koh's assistant and asked her to ask the chairman to cancel all of the friendlies. Sorry for the mix up*

[psilord80]

A few days had gone by since the last press conference where we introduced Idros to the assembled press. Since then he has been training hard with the rest of the squad and I could see that he was fighting for a starting position in the team. I had to leaving the training to my brand new back room staff and as far as I could see, everything was being handled well. I headed to the board room from the pitch for a meeting with the chairman and the other directors. We talked about the recent S$230k loss that was incurred by the club but I assured the board that once the season started, we would be making profits. Then we went on to the matter of getting a feeder club. The directors said that they could give me 3 choices of clubs for my recommendation. I looked through all three clubs and I recommended Johor Linkedua. The club was in Johor, which was really close to Singapore and we only had to pay them an annual fee of about S$5K. The directors agreed and they left to set up the deal.

I, on the other hand, had to go to the airport to meet up with the representative from the Korean Association of Singapore and welcome our newest player. My scouts report said that he spoke good English so I knew language wouldn’t be a problem. The lady from the association was already there and we went to the arrival hall to wait. She was holding a placard with the guys name on it so that he would know that it was us who came to pick him and his dad up. After about 30 min, they came to the meeting area and I welcomed them to Singapore. The father didn’t speak real great English though so the lady had to translate for me. I took them on a tour of the stadium, the training area and introduced him to the reserve squad where he would be playing for now while I and my assistant assess how he fits into the first team. After the tour, the lady took them to meet the boy’s host family in Singapore. Everything was going great so far. I went back to overseeing training of the first team. We had to be ready to leave for Malaysia in two days.

[psilord80]

“Alright everybody ready? Good. Now get on the bus and get a seat so that we can be on our way.†I told the players as they were getting onto the bus to the airport where we would take a short plane ride to Kuala Lumpur to face FELDA United first, from there we would take another flight to Kuantan (Pahang) to face Shahza Muda, then on to Kota Bharu (Kelantan) to face Kelantan FC and finally to Cheras (Kuala Lumpur) to face Kuala Lumpur FC. “You got to like those discounted group rates†I tokd myself. On the bus ride I asked my assistant O’Connell if he had any problems with Surachai coming back next week as a second assistant manager. He said that he had some concerns about it but overall he felt that it would be a good choice. Once we reached the airport, we went through the process of getting our passports stamped and going though customs which was a bit of a hassle but we did get it done. We walked to the gate and eventually we were told to board the plane.

“Ok guys, this is my first friendly managing a football team so this I what I need you guys to do………†I told the players in the “away†team dressing room at the Petronas Stadium. This was the friendly between between us and FELDA United. We had arrived the day before and trained at the stadium to get used to it that evening. I told the players I wanted to go for a 4-4-2 formation and that we would be attacking from the start as much as possible. I told them that we had been training with this formation for weeks now and we should be able to at least get away with a decent result. I gave the players some individual instructions and the next thing I knew, I was sitting at the dugout and the players were lining up on the field. I had a good feeling about this. I was disappointed at the turnout though, there were only 500 people in the whole stadium. Anyway, the referee started the match and we were off. The players for the most part were playing well and following my instructions. We were attacking more but seemed to lose possession very easily and the attackers were shooing in the general direction of the goal but they kept on missing. IN the mean time, FELDA changed their tactics to draw us in and then counter attack and suddenly they had more possession than us. Salleh and Subramani were having problems trying to sop their players but thanks to Lewis, the score was still 0-0 at half time. At the break I told them that they were doing a good job so far, we just needed to keep possession of the ball and keep hounding them. Soon the second half started and it seemed what I had told the players had been for nothing. We still kept losing possession and FELDA would try to punish us. This kept on going for a few more minutes before Salleh stole the ball and passed it to Bel. He ran like crazy along the left flank and made a great pass where he the ball threaded to Indra Sahdan. Sahdan pulled his foot back and kicked the ball. Next thing I knew, the players were celebrating on the pitch. The ball hit the goalkeepers finger tips and was deflected into the left corner of the net. I cheered the players on and we managed to hold. At the final whistle we had won 1-0. I told O’Connell that it was a good feeling to win. “Um Boss, you forgot to make substitutions, now all the players are tired and some of them don’t look too happyâ€. I was so excited about the game that I really had forgotten to make any substitutions. When we went to the dressing room the most of the players were happy with the win, others were just too tired to even get angry. I told them that I was sorry for my mistake but to make it up to them, I’ll treat the team to a seafood dinner. The next day we did some training in the morning until noon. The rest of the day the players were out shopping for their wives and girlfriends. My parents were in Kuala Lumpur so I called and said I would visit them during after our final game in Malaysia. They had read the New Straits Times which reported that I was pretty much the youngest football manager in Singapore and it also ad a match report of the previous game with FELDA. They said that they were proud but worried since they thought that if results went badly then I would be fired. I told them not to worry.

The next two days were hectic and passed very quickly I made some changes to the team and put in Idros for the right midfield position against Shahzan Muda. This game was different than the first one and we had most possession and more chances at goal but the “inaccurate shot demon†always turned up to foil Sahdan and Ludovick. Once again at half time we were 0-0. At the break I informed the players that all of them except for Ludovick, Nasir and Salle would be substituted. Lucky for us, after the break we just decided to go all out and by the 85th minute we were 2-1 up, our two goals coming from Sahdan and Nasir. At that time I was thinking that we’ll have a second win. “Not bad,†I thought. Next thing I know, one of the Muda strikers shoots the ball towards goal and Salleh blocks it with his leg. Even before I could shout “Good Job!!!†the ball just ricocheted of his leg and went past Lewis and that’s the score the game ended at; 2-2. Salleh was devastated but I told him that he shouldn’t worry as it was just an unlucky break. I told him tat I had talked this over with Subramani and we both agreed that from now on he would be captaining the first team. He was very thankful and promised me that he would repay my faith in him by performing well at every game. Unfortunately he bruised his head during training in preparation for our next friendly but I was glad to know he would be out for two weeks at least. In the meantime he could do some light physical activity but no headers for awhile. The next game against Kelantan FC made it 2 wins and 1 draw thanks to a Sahdan penalty and a goal from open play by Shi Jiayi to make the score 2-1.

We went into the final friendly full of confidence knowing that we could kick Kuala Lumpur FC’s behind. Salleh did not start for this game but he was in the stands watching the game. I managed to get tickets for my parents and for Vivian to come watch the game in seats close to the half way line. The game started off very well and we had 3 shots in the opening 3 minutes of the game. Each shot getting closer and closer to a goal. Just then, one of the KLFC striker broke my defensive wall and shot straight into the net making it 1-0 for them. I wasn’t too worried as we got behind in the Kelantan FC games and ended up winning the game. After 25 minutes of play, I found this was nothing like the Kelantan game. KLFC was shooting balls at our goal like crazy and it was like the defense just crumbled away. Then BANG, they scored another goal to make it 2-0 in the 30th minute. It remained at that score until half time. In the dressing room I asked the defenders what happened. They played so well the past few games and in this one they just disappeared after the first goal. I told them that they did try hard but I had to change the whole defensive lineup for the second half as well as the striking pair upfront. They understood my reasoning and then we began the second half. I thought we were doing well until KLFC made in 3-0. And that was it, the game finished at 3-0. It could as easily have been 4-0 but the player miss-hit the ball and it flew out onto the running track. The players were upset but I just told them that this was just a friendly and they did pretty well so far. The real test would be in 20 days once the season officially starts. After a day of relaxation, the players and staff proceeded to head back to Singapore.

In the meantime I met up with my parents and talked to them about everything that happened. I haven’t seen them since I graduated in 2004. We talked for a while and then they had to go as my dad was teaching a class in the university the next day. Next I met up with Vivian and I took her to a nice restaurant for dinner and we just caught up on things that happened since graduation in 2004. She said she had a good job with an insurance company and that she was happy there. I told her that I was glad to be in Singapore again and that now she should come visit me soon since I visited her in Kuala Lumpur. She said that she can only come next month since she has some free time then but in the meantime she would call me every week. After the meal I told her I had to go since I was scheduled on the late night flight back to Singapore. I took her home in a cab and she hugged me and told me that I did something real good in getting this job. I thanked her, waited for her to get into her parents house then took the cab to the airport On the plane I reflected on the team’s performance and even tough I told them it was a good job, it wasn’t. I thought that maybe 4-4-2 wasn’t such a good idea for the players. I thought of other formations and then everything finally clicked. As the plane was heading for final approach into Singapore, I thought to myself “Ummmmm… How about 4-3-1-2?? That should work.â€

[psilord80]

“Hey wake up lah!! Its 8am already. How much longer are you going to sleep???†I woke up all groggy to the sound of Irene’s voice ringing in my head. I hadn’t slept much, only about 3 hours. I was staying up most of the night trying to perfect the tactic and formation the team would be using for the season. The friendlies in Malaysia had given me an idea of who I wanted for my newest first team. I just had to see them in training before I finalized my decision.

I am trying to keep my eyes open as I read the newspaper in my office. The sports section has interviews with four of the 12 S-League managers. One of the questions was about how the “newest kid on the block†would fare this season. To put it simply, all of them felt sorry for HUFC. “Oh well, who cares what they think?!?!†I thought. I put the paper down and went down to see the players train. On the way I bumped into Surachai who had come back the same time I did from Malaysia. He said he was had just finished apologizing to the players for leaving so abruptly but he was glad that he was the co-assistant manager. I put Surachai in charge of the reserve squad but I still wanted him around the first team players since he knew most of them and was generally well liked. He and O’Connell got along well so it wasn’t too awkward when I asked both of them their opinions of the new first team roster. The actual roster stayed the same for the defence with Lewis in goal. I had replaced Sulaiman with Idros as the attacking midfielder and I put Jung Sun at right midfield in place of Qiu Li. I told Jung Sun that this was his chance to prove himself. Qiu Li wasn’t too upset and I told him that I needed to rest him since he was still pretty tired.

Back in my office, I was looking at the fisture list. “Umm… seems like an interesting season.†Our first game was the Asian Confederation cup match against Happy Valley from Hong Kong. The Asian Confederation Cup is pretty much Asia’s version of the UEFA Cup. Then our first S-League game will be against Young Lions and we were also in the Singapore Cup Preliminary round, with our first game against Geylang United. We were entered into 3 competitions but the one we had to clinch first was the league title. Everything else was secondary. The club would start its league bid in a week’s time, against Happy Valley in Hong Kong. I just couldn’t wait.

[psilord80]

Sorry everyone but my game crashed last night and I had a start a new one. I still signed on Idros and Jung Sun-Bi but the only changes I will be making is to the fixture list. Will upsate sooon. Cheers.

[psilord80]

“Hi Mahmood, could you please come to my office now. We have a little problem.†That was Mr. Koh’s message on my answering machine. I wondered what was going on as he sounded really ****ed off. “Ok, whatever it was it wasn’t me. I swear†I told Mr. Koh as I entered his office. He said that someone at FAS screwed up and they had sent over the wrong fixture list for Home United. I told him that it was impossible and that I had checked the first fax of the original fixture list he had sent me some time ago. “Did you check all 3 pages?†he asked me. “There were 3 pages?†I said. Apparently I had only looked at the first page and had not even looked at the other 2 pages. I asked him how he knew that the fixture list was the wrong one. “Well unless we are playing against ourselves in the middle of the season, I’d say that this was the wrong one!!†he said. I felt like an idiot. He said that the list was originally for Balestier Khalsa and he had already phoned the FAS about the mix up. He told me that they would send the new fixture list later on in the afternoon. I then went to the training ground and told O’Connell about what happened. He said that the player were ready to play against any opponent. “Good, now we just have to wait†I told him.

[psilord80]

“WHAT?!?!?!??!?!?! You are KIDDING me right?!?!?!?!?!†I had to react when Mr. Koh said that the FAS kept our original schedule and just changed some games around. My scout had told me that Happy Valley would not be an easy team to beat but we had already cancelled our plane tickets to Hong Kong and the game was in a week. “Actually I just post poned the flight until we knew what our new schedule was†he said. I breathed a sigh of relief and went out to talk to my assistant again. Told him that the trip to play in Hong Kong was a go. “Ah boss, we have a problem. Lewis is injured. He tried to go for a ball but slipped on a banana skin.†I just looked at him and said “HUH????†He then repeated himself about Lewis’ injury and said that he would be out for at least 2 weeks. So he would miss our matches against Happy Valley and Young Lions. “Damn it!!!â€

ACC Games.

The first stop for our Asian Confederation Cup (ACC) was in Hong Kong against Happy Valley. I knew we had to start off the game brightly. The action was mostly on their side of the pitch and in midfield. “Get back, get back,†I shouted to my defense. They were actually at the edge of the center circle and were hurrying to get back when they saw Icaro, a striker from Happy Valley, had lobbed a ball over them into the completely open space between them and the goal to Lee Chi Ming who then ran with the ball to the edge of the penalty box and gave a right footed shot into the right side of the net. Our replacement keeper, Fatah Hassan, had absolutely no chance. So in the 8th minute we were down 1-0 and it remained that way until half-time. After the team talk, the players knew they had to get their act together. I told the defense players that I wanted them to stay back at all costs no matter what. I told the attackers that they were doing a good job. We had 15 shots on goal and I told them we had to make at least one goal. At the second half the team actually did attempt more shots and until the 80th minute we had 20 shots at goal but we were misfiring like crazy. I took off Sufian Anuar, a reserve player I had promoted to the first team, and Sahdan out of the game and replaced them with Jiayi and another first teamer, Ram Shanker. The fresh legs helped a lot and we kept on getting closer and closer to that goal. The clock was ticking down and next thing I know Shanker mispassed the ball into open space and then I see Nabeel Yusoff, one of the central defenders run up to the ball. “Oh crap!!!!!†I thought to myself as he approached the penalty area and saw 2 Valley defenders run towards him. Before they could reach him, he shot the ball wildly and, luckily, it hit the cross bar and had JUST gone over the goal line. The players were celebrating the 88th minute equalizer but after the whistle we started to get complacent and almost conceded 2 goals. There was a sigh of relief in the dugout, we had survived on the night but there were other games that were going to be even more difficult than this one. Now we had to look forward to my first league game against Young Lions. It was going to be one hell of a week.

[psilord80]

S-League

“BOOOO!!!!!! BOOOOO!!!!!!†the spectators shouted at my team who I was now convinced where total no-hopers. We had done so well against Happy Valley but against Young Lions we just gave in to their attack. Our defense was non-existent and the attacker was even worse. We had only 3 shots on goal compared to their 10. In the end we ended up losing the game 6-0. A lot f the players never even performed and I let the team know that they had to improve for the next game against Niigata Unicorn (Singapore). A few days later, I had received some offers for players which I was only too glad to accept. I told Mamadou, Junior, Bel and Egmar that they were to be sold off. I knew it was a risk selling the big players but they never even gave their all in the game against the Young Lion’s. Bel told me that I was just selling them off because I was angry and that I haven’t given them enough time to settle on the pitch playing for a new manager. But I told them that they had enough friendlies to show me what they could do and their performance in the Young Lions game was unforgivable. They were really ****ed off. I told them that they were to clean out their lockers because as of now they were no longer wanted at the club. Mamadou and Bel accepted a transfer to Tampines and Junior went on to SAFFC. Egmar on the other hand decided that it was probably time for him to retire.

“What the hell did you do?†the chairman was shouting at me. He was also mad that I sold off some of the big name players. I told him that I didn’t feel they were giving it their all and I suggested some players that we should buy to cover their positions. “Who are these guys?†he asked; I could still hear the anger in his voice. I showed him some scout reports of Goh Swee Swee, Fo’de’ Diakite and Mohamed Kone’. I told him that they were good players that would fit in with the team. He said that he didn’t like it but he would give me a chance to prove that they were as good as the ones that were transferred out. The transfers were made really quickly and next thing I knew, 2 days later they were training with the rest of the boys. I told them that they would be starting for the next game in two days and they had to prove to me that they should be in the first eleven.

It was time for the match against Niigata Unicorn (Singapore). The new transfers were in the team with a few changes. I pulled Fadly out of the DL position and put him on the bench so that Diakite could show me what he has. I gave Alias a rest, replacing him with Swee Swee and I put Kone’ in the central midfield (CM) spot. It was an instant hit compared to the Young Lions game. Although we still did not have that many shots on goal, we had more of possession of the ball. Eventually Kone’ passed the ball on to Sulaiman who passed it to Shi Jiayi. He took the ball, centered it and thumped it right into the roof of the net. And Bishan Stadium was suddenly alive. 2 more goals in the 44th and 50th minutes by Ludovick sealed the game for Home United. Everyone was happy including the chairman. I was much happier than him honestly, it was a risk selling those guys so close to this game but it was worth it. Now we had to get ready for the coming of Sengkang.

[psilord80]

Singapore Cup (S-Cup)

A serious bout of the flu was going around Bishan Stadium and many players and staff were sneezing and coughing away. It was two day until the Singapore Cup preliminary match against Geylang United and I already had about half of my first team out with the flu, things could not get any worse than this. I had to call up 5 reserve team players to start training with the first team so that the flu victims could be covered. Some of the reserve players were actually good during training. I was just hoping that playing against a big team like Geylang United wouldn’t be too much for them.

It was the day of the game and I was glad to know that about 7290 people were in the stands for this Singapore Cup preliminary round. That was the most number of people I have ever seen in Bishan Stadium. Before the players went out on the pitch, I just told them to go enjoy themselves and play some good football for our fans. We got the first shot right from the first whistle. Annuar saw that the Geylang goalkeeper was off his line and he made an audacious shot almost from the half way line. His Beckham-like shot had no real power and the goalkeeper captured the ball comfortably. Then after a lot of passing the ball around, we scored in the 3rd minute through Ludovick. The Geylang manager was shouting at the fourth official saying that one of the HUFC players was offside but he was told to just sit down. We control of most of the match and gave Geylang absolutely no chance. In the 6th minute we scored again through Qiu Li making it 2-0 to HUFC. The fans were ecstatic, and didn’t disappoint them two more goals in the 17th and 45th minutes virtually ended the tie. In the second half, it was Geylang who came forward more but even though they had some superb shots on goal, they were never really going inside our net. And that was it, final score 4-0 to HUFC and Geylang were eliminated from the Singapore Cup. It was a good feeling to win my first S-Cup match and I wanted this winning mentality to go on into our League and our Confederations Cup games.

With the win against Geylang United a month earlier, we were full of confidence for the coming of Niigata Unicorn (Singapore) for the S-Cup Quarter Final 1st leg match. I had the full team available for this game but I decided to keep the same squad as the Geylang United game but I had most of the big guns that didn’t play because of the flu on the bench. The referee blew his whistle and the game was on. Niigata had some of the early chances, keeping us on the back foot for most of the first quarter. However, we did manage a few runs and shots on goal in this time until Ludovick got tackled inside the Niigata penalty area resulting in a kick from the spot. The Niigata goalie had no chance and thanks to the penalty we were leading 1-0. The Japanese team didn’t give up though and continued to bombard us with shots on goal and I could see that some of the reserve players started to make stupid decisions about passing the ball. In the 39th minute I took out 2 of the reserve players and put in 2 of the more experienced players on the field. Then the game started to get interesting. Where Niigata had been surging forward at all times, we just soaked up the pressure and then continued to hit them on the counter attack. We kept on playing like this until Anuar scored a screamer of a goal in the 80th minute, making the score 2-0. We were coasting now and passing the ball amongst ourselves. I told the players just to waste time and keep possession until the final whistle. Niigata were desperate for at least one away goal to give them a chance at the second leg which would be at Jurong East Stadium. In the dying minutes they surged forward and tried to break our possession on the ball. They succeeded. Next thing I knew, our defenders were scrambling to stop the fast Hideya Tanaka from making a shot from our penalty box. The ball went into the net from close range in the 90th minute and they had a lifeline now going into the second leg. After the game, I told the players they played very well, despite the late goal, and that I wanted them to keep up this level of performance for the away leg in 2 weeks.

[psilord80]

This was it. The day of the 2nd leg against Niigata Unicorn (Singapore) for the Singapore Cup. We had come to Jurong East Stadium with a slender 2-1 lead from the 1st legs. I had a full squad to choose from with the only injury being Jung-Sun who had to have a hernia operation few days before this game. As the game started, the team has done the same thing they have done since the beginning of this campaign. They immediately started attacking the opposition. Niigata was more cautious this time although they were playing at home and they were just soaking up the pressure from our attacks. Then it happened, they countered brilliantly in the 6th minute with Hiroyuke Abe scoring for the Japanese with a superb goal. The biggest problem that we had was that everyone wanted to have a go at the opposition goal, even our defenders. That’s how we lost this goal; the defense had no chance against Abe’s goal. I didn’t need to tell the players anything, they knew exactly what they had to do. Alias, the captain told the defenders to stay back and let the midfield and attackers take care of things. And then, in the 17th and 41st minutes, Qiu Li made some great shots that ended up in the back of the net and we were leading the tie once again with Anuar adding a third goal for us in the 45th minute. The second half had restarted and we were full of confidence. I actually think we were too confident and we had every right to be since Sahdan shot our 4th goal in the 54th minute. From then on we stated to make many stupid mistakes defensively. Our first mistake gifted Yoshizawa a goal in the 64th minute and from then on Niigata were coming at us by producing wave after wave of attacks. This tactic paid off in the end with Shida scoring Niigata’s 3rd goal. We were getting worried now and I was shouting at the players that we needed just one more goal to wrap things up. Thank goodness for wishful thinking; it was Sahdan again who was the hero on the night with a screamer from outside the penalty area that ended up in the back of the net in the 89th minute. The score should have stayed that way. Niigata made few desperate pushes towards goal and their resilience ended with a goal in the 90th minute thanks to Yoshizawa again. But that was all that Niigata could muster and the most exciting game I have ever seen so far ended. The final score was 5-4 to HUFC with us going through to the semi-finals thanks to a aggregate score of 7-5. We were excited and confident to progress to the finals.

Our semi-final game was going to be against Woodlands with the 1st leg away at Woodlands Stadium. In the dressing room before the game, I told the players that we had to make a great impression here and I wanted us to score the first goal. I did not want to chase the game or go for a draw. “I want a win. Let’s show these guys our intention to push them aside to get to the final†I told the players. Ince the game started, I think the players forgot everything I had told them. We got creamed in the first half with goals from Agu Casmir, Sazali Salleh and Itimi Dickson all scoring nice goals. It was like the defense never existed. I made some substitution in the second half but we could not manage a fight back. Then in the 83rd minute, Diakite was tripped by Salleh and we had won a penalty. He kicked the back into the goal from the spot but that was it. The first leg ended with a horrible loss to our closest rival in the league with a score of 4-1 to Woodlands.

“Ok, we are playing at home now. Lets forget what happened three weeks ago and we’ll show them why we should not be seen as pushovers. I want us to go out and play some great foot ball.†The players were refreshed this time and I could see that they wanted revenge for the 4-1 humiliation that happened in the 1st leg 3 weeks ago. When the whistle blew to start the game we pushed back at Woodlands. This time they were making the mistake, and led Sahdan to score a tap-in in the 23rd minute. We had more chances on goal but the attackers were just shooting blanks. The second half saw Sahdan come off for Anuar. Sahdan had felt tightness in his leg muscles so we just took him off. Once he came on, Anuar had a great chance to make it 2-0 but he kicked the ball too hard and it fell onto the running track. The score could have been 7-0 if only we could put n all the missed chances. But that was not to be, in the 75th minute Ludovick scored to make it 2-0 for us on the night but that was all we could manage. The boys had played their hearts out but all we could manage was a 2-0 win but we lost 4-3 on aggregate. “What a way to go†I told O’Connell. The media had said that we had played a great game but we had to improve on our scoring rate. I agreed, I told the players that the next time we were in the S-Cup, I wanted to win it. I told them we still had the ACC and the league to fight for and that I expected them to give their best for those games.

[psilord80]

Sorry about the lack of update. I have my last exam today and after that I will try and post an update ASAP. Thanks to everyone who has been reading this story.

[psilord80]

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…… ïŠïŠ

[BenArsenal]

Oh great! A Singaporean story!

I'll be following this closely.

[psilord80]

Originally posted by BenArsenal:

Oh great! A Singaporean story!

I'll be following this closely.

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

[psilord80]

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.

[psilord80]

“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?!?!??!!â€. 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.

[psilord80]

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 officeâ€, 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.

[psilord80]

"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.

[psilord80]

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 yourselvesâ€, 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 businessâ€. 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.

[psilord80]

"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.

[psilord80]

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.

[Terk]

Unlocked and upped

[psilord80]

*Thanks Terk. This will be a continuation of my previous story. This time I will be using the FM 2008 game updated to the 8.0.2 version. I have the Singapore League and the Conference leagues and above for England. I just got the game yesterday and I am currently going through the first season. I will be making my first update on Friday when I start on my second season. *

[psilord80]

This last month of the season turned out to be a real roller coaster run. We had even more injuries unfortunately. The team lost Azman, our goalie to a horror tackle against Woodlands and had to be hospitalized. We later found out that his knee ligaments were torn and that he would be out for the rest of the season and for most of the next one. At this time our fortunes were so bad that we started to drop points like crazy. At the end of the season, we ended up at a 4th place finish, which was dissappointment to the chairman and the board. All in all, the final part of the season sucked thanks to all the injuries. Once again we ended up with no trophies to show the fans.

The next day, the chairman called me into his office. He said that he had a long talk with the board of directors and they came to the conclusion that they were quite disappointed with the position we finished the season in. But they were behind me 100% to bring the team top honors next season. With that, the end of season break started. The players went off to parts unknown to lick their wounds while I talked to the scouts and told them to search for decent players in Singapore and the rest of South East Asia. After that, I needed a break so I went off to my girlfriends place in Kuala Lumpur and then from there we went off to meet my old friends in Wichita. I just needed to get as far away from Singapore as possible so that I could recharge my batteries.

[psilord80]

It was a great time in Wichita. Vivian and I stayed with some frineds and just relaxed. The mental break did me a lot of good as a few weeks later I was relaxed enough to get ready for the next season. It took us sometime to get back since the day we were supposed to leave it was snowing like crazy. So the flight back was rescheduled for the week after so that the majority of the 4 feet of snow could melt away.Once the snow and ice was gone we left back for Singapore. At Singapore I said good bye to Vivian as she was heading off to Malaysia sicne she was working there. Before she left for her gate I gave her a kiss and she promised to come back to Singapore for a visit in August. After she left through the gate, I took a taxi went to my apartment. It wasn’t a bad place to stay. It was a one bedroon flat with a nice view of Bukit Timah hill. I made a mental note to thank Irene for finding this place fo me. It was a very nice place.

The next day after a good nights sleep, I took a cab to Bishan Stadium. I saw people already jogging on the running track that surrounded the field. Then I walked to the my office to meet up with my scouts and my assistant manager. My assistant manager had told me that the team had reported back with no injuries to report. He said that he decided to change the training schedule a bit to what he thought would be a decent training set. I asked him if this would increase the injury rate of the players and he assured me that there won’t be as many injuries as we had in the last pat of the season. So I just told him to get to it and start training the players. Once he was out of the room, I talked to my scout about any players that he found who were decent enough to play for us. He recommened a few players like Farhan Farook and Lu Jian who were pretty decent player according to him. I then asked him to keep on looking for players who were between 17 and 23 years old. I wanted players who were good midfielders and strikerssince goals were a big problem to come by last season. After the scout was gone, I went to the chairman’s office to talk to him about the wage and transfer budgets for this season. I had already spent most of the money last season so I was hoping that he and the board would authorise more funds. I also wanted to request another feeder club outside Singapore so that we could make get a foothold in the Asian countries in order to get some great players. I opened the door to the chairman’s office and he did not look happy at all.

[psilord80]

“Hey Mr. Koh, why so glum?†I tried to alleviate the tension that was in the room already. He still didn’t seem to lighten up his mood. “What happened? And how serious is it?†I asked him. He said that the S-League changed its cup competition rules again. This time the League Cup would start first before the actual league games even began. That meant that there wasn’t enough time to get friendlies against quality opposition. I knew this was not a very good thing as I wanted the players to be able to play friendlies against some of the harder teams in the region to improve the players I already had. “So all the games we set up in Thailand are cancelled now?†I asked him. “Yes, we couldn’t risk going there and then coming immediately back to Singapore. The players would be fatigued since by the time we returned it would have been only 2 weeks until the start of the season,†he explained. I thought about what he said and then exclaimed, “Why don’t we just have a cup friendly here in Singapore? We can call it the Bishan Cup and invite teams from Singapore and other countries in the region.†He thought about that and said that it was a good idea. He then went about setting up the mini-tournament.

The tournament was set up a few days later. We could not get some of the bigger teams in Asia to come play this tournament. We even had problems with the S-League teams as they did not want to waste their time with a “Mickey Mouse†tournament as they described it. The teams that did respond were Kaki Bukit FC from Singapore and two teams from Indonesia; Persipura and Arema. As far as my team was concerned we had no injuries to speak off but we had some deserters. I found out that a few of my big profile players did not make it to training. I called them up and they told me in no uncertain terms that they wanted to leave Home United for another team. I asked them why, and they said that they did not think I had what it took to win the S-League since the team had not won it the two seasons I was in charge. I told them that I understood their concerns and that they would be transfer listed and sold to the first available clubs that come calling. In the meantime they would be confined to the reserves. I also told them that if they kept on insisting on not coming for training then I would keep on fining them 2 weeks wages until they show up. After that threat, they promised to show up for trining the next day. After taking care of that mess, I went to meet with my scould and assistant manager. He told me that he received training video tapes from 2 African players and he wanted me and my number 2 to check them out.

We viewed the tapes and were impressed by what we saw. One was a goalkeeper from Zimbabwe named Ryan Till and the other guy was also from the same country; an attacking midfielder named Adam Greene. The best thing was they could be signed for free and they were asking for low wages. I asked one of my African players, Ludovick, to talk to them and tell them that I was very interested in signing them up for the club. By this moment in time Ludovick was already a Singaporean citizen so I had the option of bringing back Jung Sun-Bi from the Super Reds team. However he had an injury that would take a few months to heal so he would be pretty much useless to me if he did come back. So I gave a call to Sun-Bi to wish him well and to ask him if he knew any interested South Korean players who wanted to come to play in Singapore. He told me that his friend Yoon Bit-Garam was a fairly decent attacking player who was looking to leaving Korea to play elsewhere. He said that he would talk to him and see if he was interested. A few days later, Sun-Bi said that he was very interested in coming to play in Singapore. I then called his club in South Korea and was surprised to know that he was available for nothing at all. So I immediately bid on him and a few days later he was a part of the squad training for the upcoming season. I felt we were ready to finally go all out for the title. The 2007 and 2008 season were just my “honeymoon†period but the 2009 season would be the time when this team fights to win the league. After talking with the coaches and my assistant, I decided to settle on a 3-4-1-2 formation. I wanted a different formation from what we had the last season so that we could surprise our opponents. The Bishan Cup was going to start tomorrow and I know my team was ready to face Arema from Indonesia.

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The game against Arema was a very difficult one. My new formation worked but we were behind for most of the game. Although we had about 20 shots on goal only one managed to sneak into the goal in the 71st minute thanks to Shi Jiayi. Arema, on the other hand were determind to win the match. They made shot after shot but none of them landed in the goal thanks to Till. We were on course to win the match when in the 90th minute Ishak made a hard back pass to Till who, in turn, missed the ball and it rolled into the net. The Arema players were ecstatic and the final whistle rang for extra time. We did our best to win in extra time but I could see that the players were getting tired. I used up all my subs already except for Lewis who was on the bench since Till was in goal. I told him to go on as a midfielder to replace Jiayi who was so fatigued that he was just walking around now. That change did not do any good although we still shot more stray balls at goal. We were almost to penalty kicks when Arema’s Muhammad Saputra got the goal in our half and just gave a wild shot. It looked like it was going out but then it dipped down and went into the net. Till had absolutely no chance to stop that ball since he was already at the edge of the penalty box. Then the final whistle rang again and the players just dropped onto the grass. This loss meant that our next game in the Bishan Cup would be for the 3rd place play-off against Kaki Bukit from Singapore’s lower leagues.

Two days later, the 3rd place match was held at Bishan Stadium in front of a crowd of 2422 people. I told the players that our pride was at stake in this game and that I did not want to lose to a lower league team. I used the same team formation as before and told the players to go out there and win the game. Kaki Bukit kicked off the game and immediately they started attacking our goal. Till was on his best form and stopped the shots that were aimed at him. We had the most chances to score and thanks to Latiff and Ludovick we did score in the 24th and 39th minute respectively. The players tried to score more but they just could not aim their shots properly. But all that mattered were the two goals that were scored to get us the 3rd place finish. It wasn’t the best performance from the team but it got the results we needed. At least it showed that the 3-4-1-2 formation was a viable one. Our next match would be against Woodlands in the League Cup quarter finals.

League Cup

The two weeks have passed really fast and the next thing I knew was that it was time for our first cup match. The board had already told me that they expected the team to win the League Cup as our first piece of silverware. I told the board that this would be the season we win something. I used the same team that beat Kaki Bukit against Woodlands. There were about 6024 people packed into the stadium when the referee’s whistle went off signaling the start of the game. We were attacking right from the start and make 7 shots at goal in the first 40min of play but although those shots were on target, there was no goal. Then suddenly Woodlands got the advantage and started to pass the ball around until it reached Sazali Salleh who was already at the edge of our box and he did a little dribble with the ball before shooting it into the back of the net in the 44th minute. After halftime we were again on the offensive and although Woodlands made 5 more shots towards goal, Till was able to handle them. We kept of trying until the 64th minute when Sharil Alias, who was running alongside Ludovick, got the ball from him and made a superb shot. It actually hit the crossbar and went over the goal line. All the players were happy since now we had a chance to win the game. We kept on going at it but it was no good. We just could not score for some reason. In the 94th minute the referee blew his whistle and it was time for the penalty shootout. Each of the players went up to the box and tried to kick the ball into the net. For some reason we could not get the ball into the net even at that range. Eventually, we lost the penalty shootout 3-4 and Woodlands went on through to the Semi Finals. The players trudged on back to the dressing rooms and were visibly upset. But despite this loss we needed to get ready for the start of the regular season in about 3 weeks and in these 3 weeks I planned for the coaches to train the players hard, especially at shooting and attacking. I also asked my scouts to keep a lookout for any good defenders out there who could play in central defence. I knew the board would not be too happy with this loss but I couldn’t concentrate on what they might say, I had the first league games against Geylang United to worry about.

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S-League.

The league had finally started again against Geylang United. The games had started of fine with us attacking their goal every few minute. But again we could not connect any shots. The 3-4-1-2 formation I was using seemed to be working pretty well defensively. The game so far was pretty free-flowing and then we had a break in the 40th minute when one of the Geylang players attempted a back pass and Ishaq broke the offside trap, collected the ball and shot past the keeper. It was 1-0 and we were all celebrating. I thought to myself that this was a great way to start the season; a win at our fierce rivals. After the half, Geylang seemed more dangerous as they started to make one attack after another at our goal. I looked in horror as the defense just seemed to be daydreaming as from the 60th to the 70th minute Geylang had scored 4 goals. This was not good; the players were suddenly low on morale and started to leave even more gaps in the defense. Geylang could have scored more goals but their finishing was off the mark. The fans were not happy with the score line and the newspapers let that fact be known over the next few days. The Geylang manager had also said that I should leave the world of football gracefully and take up another career. I didn’t bother to reply to his jibes because I had more important stuff to worry about. Another paper had asked me the day after the game if we were title contenders, I told him that we were and that we would prove it at the end of the season.

The first part of the season was a flurry of activity with transfers going on everywhere until the transfer window was closed. I had space open for one more foreign player and bid on Bio Paulin who was recommended to me from one of the staff at Sporting Afrique in the Singaporean lower leagues. He was said to be a defender who was available on a free transfer from Cameroon with a very bright future. I offered him a contract and he accepted. I put him straight into the squad for the rest of the season. As the season went, we climbed up from the bottom of the league table until we were at second place at the final stretch of the season. Everyone was playing really well scoring 80 goals and conceding only 49. The final game of the season saw us against Niigata Unicorn (Singapore) with us in second place on the table with only 1 point separating us and top placed Tampines Rovers who were up against Geylang United on the same day we were playing. This was a huge game for the team and the fans as Bishan stadium was completely full. Even the board members were there and they seemed equally excited about the possibility of winning this game and thus the league. We needed to win this game no matter what to win the league while Geylang only needed us to either draw or lose to win the league.

The referee blew his whistle and started the game. We just started to attack like crazy. Unicorn had absolutely no chance in the first half thanks to 3 goals all scored by Sahdan in the first half. In the other game Geylang had done us a huge favor by scoring 3 goals against Tampines. As it was at half time we were set to win the league and this left the players extremely overconfident which, I would soon find out, would be really, really dangerous. In the second half we made a lot of stupid mistakes primarily because the players took their foot off the gas and got really complacent. This complacency led us to give away 3 goals between the 50th and the 80th minutes of play. The only good thing was that Geylang was still holding Tampines at bay with the score in that game holding at 3-0. But Tampines at a higher goal advantage so we had to score one more goal. We started to attack again with gusto. The players knew that the title was in our hands. Then the announcer said that Tampines had lost the game 3-1 and this led to the fans screaming and cheering on the team even more. The fourth referee indicated in the 85th minute that there would be 4 minutes of extra time. Just then Pauline decided to take the loose ball and pass it to Idros while he made a run up field. Idros passed it back to him and he then dribbled up the field with the ball and shot it into the left side of the net. The score at the final whistle read 4-3 and that meant that Home United were champions!!!! Everyone on the field started to celebrate and then the players and staff did a lap of honor to thank the fans who were there. IN the dressing room, the chairman came to congratulate us on this achievement and he said that he was proud to be a fan of the team. It took a moment for the win to sink into me since I still could not believe that I had led the team to a national trophy win. The chairman told us not to relax too much as he and the board wanted us to build on this league win. The next day, the news papers were very congratulatory towards the team and one even offered to do an extensive interview with me since this league win had put me on the spotlight and the fans wanted to know more about me. This win even hit the school newspaper in the university I went to in the US with the headline reading, “Alumus does good in Singapore soccerâ€. The season wasn’t over yet though, since now I had to concentrate on the Singapore Cup final against another rival team; the Young Lions.

S-League.S-League.

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The Singapore Cup final against the Young Lions went really well. It went far better than I could dare hope actually. Both sets of fans saw superb attacking football and plenty of goals from both teams. However, at the final whistle, we did enough to win the game 5 -3. We had finally done the double! The players, staff and fans were all excited and this caused a pitch invasion from the HUFC fans. The next few days were just full of activity with interviews going on all over the place and I had received a plaque from the Singapore FA saying that because if my two wins, I had entered the Singapore Hall of Fame. I was pretty happy to get that and put it up on the wall of my office. A few days later, they had also announced that I had also won the Manager of the Year award which was extremely exciting for me and at the same time I also found that we had won the Fair Play Award. The best thing was that next season we would be playing in the Asian Champions League, which like the UEFA Champions League, is an annual event. That meant that more money would be pouring into the club for much needed improvements.

A week after we had won the cup and the media circus had died down; I had an important board meeting to get to. I had requested the meeting to discuss improving the training facilities for the first team and the youth teams. My plan was to go for my holiday after we had finalized all the deals about improvements. I met Vivian at my office and since there was only an hour until the board meeting, I put a “do not disturb†sign on my office door and then enjoyed each other’s company. About an hour later at the meeting, the board members acknowledged my request and although they said that our training facilities were decent enough, they agreed that it could be further improved. They said that they would start construction immediately and it should take about 3 months the project to be completed. With that, I thanked them and went away for my holiday with Vivian. I knew next season would be harder since we would be facing much better teams in the Asian Champions League. But all I wanted to do now was enjoy Vivian’s company and go on a long and relaxing holiday.

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*Sorry computer crashed again 2 weeks ago. Will update ASAP*

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It could not get any better than this; waking up to a beautiful woman beside me, winning the S-League, qualifying for the Asian Champions League. The board also agreed to further improve the youth training facilities along with the First Team and Reserve team training facilities as well. Vivian finally moved in with me at my flat in Singapore. She got a job with the Singapore branch of Prudential so I was really happy about this development.

Thanks to our involvement in the Champions League, I received a huge transfer windfall thanks to the board. So once I was back to work at Bishan Stadium, I started making enquiries about available players. By this time my scouts had given me detailed reports on players from Singapore and South East Asia. I also got a few tapes in the mail from prospective players who were just looking to play football again. After looking through all the scouting reports, I decided to go for Agu Casmir, Sha’ban Sevki, Ivan Rabinovich, Chase Wileman, and Choi Sang-Joon. I received a few faxes about the availability of Yoon Bi-Garam but I told the interested clubs that I would be slapping a transfer fee of S$5 million on him. Garam became unhappy once he heard that I had refused bids for him but I told him that he was contracted to Home United and I expected him to be a professional and play to the best of his ability. He didn’t like that and threatened to not sign a new contract once his current one was finished.

I sighed to myself after he left my office before heading to the board room. All the board members were there in the room and seated down. We had a closed door meeting about the aims for the season, the transfer budget and what they expected of the team since we were to take part in the Asian Champions League now. They said that they were happy with the S-League win and that I had to build on that. They had increased my transfer budget to S$750K in anticipation of the money the club would be receiving since we were taking part in Asia’s premier completion and the wage budget was also increased which was really good news. As for the Champions League, they just wanted the team to go out and enjoy taking part in the event. I told them that we were going to go into the next round at least; at this point they all were looking at one another and said that the other teams in Asia were much stronger than us so they knew that the team did not have a shot in hell of going to the next round. But they did say that although the Champions League outlook was grim, they wouldn’t mind going into the next round or winning a few matches at least. I was excited about taking part in the Champions League and could not wait for the season to start. First we went to Indonesia to take part in some friendly competitions. At the end of the friendlies, we emerged victorious taking 2 games with a score of 4-2 and the other 2 with a score of 3-1. The games against the Indonesian teams weren’t bad and it made my players hungry for the season to start in 2 weeks.

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*update coming in a week. Sorry for delay**

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The beginning of the brand new season was just one week away and I just could not wait. The players had all come to training and were as fit as can be for the new season. I thought about buying maybe one more defender but thought against it. I already had cover for the two main defenders and I just wanted to wait until the season had started to see if I needed any new players. Tactics, one for home games and another for away games were chosen by myself in collaboration with the captain and my assistant manager. Hopefully the team would do better a week from now.

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Season 2009

Asian Champions League

The Asian Champions League had begun and we started in Group A against Seongnam, Sydney FC and KTB. I kind of knew that these teams were going to be tough but I did not know how tough. The first match we had against Seongnam showed me that the team had serious deficiencies all over the place. We could not even hold on to the ball in midfield, our attackers could not get the ball into the goal and the defense was wondering off all over the field. It really felt like we were just an amateur team that the other teams could just steamroll over. And that’s exactly what happened, we were solidly beaten by every team we played against and, as the media predicted, finished dead last in our group with 6 losses and a -13 goal difference. I comforted myself and the team by saying that we were only expected to take it easy and enjoy the fact that we were just participating in the Champions League.

S-League

While I knew that the board would be very patient with me in regards to the failure of the team to get to the next round of the ACL, I also knew that I had to do everything possible to win the league at least. I just had a few more games to manage before the season was to be over and we were leading the table on 73points with 32 out of 33 games played. Second placed SAFFC was hot our trail with 72 points. I knew that the team had to win the last game against Tampines. The entire season had been a roller coaster ride but we finally reached the end of it with only one more game to go. We had two more days to train and prepare for the Tampines game and in the meantime, the board told me that I had to win the League due to my utter failure to win the Singapore Cup and the League Cup. After the meeting with the board, I went to meet with my assistant to oversee the players’ training.

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The time to face Tampines has come. The first 45 minutes of the game was a total blur to me as both teams started attacking each other from the first whistle. We had 15 shots on goal with only 6 of those going on target but still no goals. I told the players before the game that we had to win this game no matter what in order to win the title once again. Although this was the final game of the season, I wanted to take a risk and introduce a 4-3-2-1 formation. I knew that if we lost this game, I would be at fault for changing the tactic so suddenly but I wanted us to be able to control the midfield and prevent Tampines from running with the ball and scoring. For the first 45 minutes, that’s what had happened. We stopped them from controlling midfield but no one opened the scoring.

Then the second half started and it all changed. Tampines started attacking more and more and eventually they scored the first goal of the game in the 66th minute. It was now 1-0 to Tampines. I was absolutely livid as I saw that the scorer was offside and complained to the fourth official. He apparently wasn’t too happy since he gave me a warning and told me to get back into my technical area. I brought in Wileman to replace Bit-Garam and replaced Rabinovich with Casmir. After the substitution, we started showing that the team had the potential to be deadly in front of goal by forcing the Tampines keeper to save some spectacular shots. However, the fact remained that we had to score at least 2 goals to win the game. Just as I was thinking this, Wileman fired a cross into the penalty area and Casmir was there to head the ball into the back of the net. Immediately pandemonium broke out in the stands and on the field. The Home United fans and players were celebrating the goal while the Tampines players were surrounding the referee to convince him that it was an offside goal. The man in black gave out two yellow cards to the Tampines players and the game restarted once again from the center circle. From the restart, we started attacking the Tampines goal again and finally broke the deadlock in the 87th minute of play. It was a beautiful goal from the edge of the penalty box by Rabinovich that sealed the game for us. On the 90th minute the referee blew his whistle and the team and fans celebrated like there was no tomorrow. We had won the title for the second time in a row and it was a great feeling.

After the celebrations were finished, everyone went home for a well deserved rest and holiday. The players had already left for their holiday with their families the next morning and I was due to go on a trip with Vivian that evening to visit our friends in Wichita. Before that however, I had a meeting with the board of directors before that and they didn’t sound too happy. At the meeting I was told that although they are very happy with the club winning the title again, they were disappointed that we could not win the League Cup and the Singapore Cup. I told them that we always have next year to try and win those two trophies and I once again made a request to further improve the training areas since we would be getting more money coming in from our Champions League participation. They agreed again and told me that everything would be ready in 3 months. I was told to enjoy my vacation and come back fresh for the next season. I said my thanks and left for my holiday.

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Season 2010 to Season 2011

The win over Tampines and the resultant championship trophy win caused the Home United players to gain even more confidence that they could play in this team and be a successful player. The 2009 win was the 2nd consecutive time we won the league and I was hoping that we could add to that tally. Season 2010 and 2011 was pivotal in the teams’ pursuit to be the top team in Singapore. We had won the titles for the 3rd and 4th consecutive time respectively. I have to admit that the team was exceptional during all of the league games. The only domestic trophies we had not won during this period were the Singapore and the League Cups. The absence of these trophies was a concern among the board of directors but the fans did not seem to mind as long as we kept on winning the title.

As far as the ACL was concerned, we improved our positions during the group stages finishing in 2010 in 3rd place and in 2011 in 2nd place. This was inter-related to the board having improved the training and the youth facilities thanks to the money earned from playing in the ACL. We expanded the training facilities so much that we believed we had a top training facility which would be in the same league as the training facilities that were provided for my team in Japan and Australia during our ACL away games. We had also won the South East Asian Club Championship in 2011 by defeating KTB by a score of 4-2 in Indonesia. It was my first Asian Trophy with Home United and we were so excited. The board, the fans and the players were very excited by this development as they never expected us to win it.

Despite in being a stable team in regards to winning trophies, some of the players were becoming more and more unhappy with playing for the team and many of them had told me that they did not want to play for the team anymore. They said that they felt their ability would be better for higher level teams. I had no choice but to put them on they transfer list since they refused to come for training and their agents had already said that they where not coming back despite them having contracts. I didn’t like it one bit since not only were they being very unprofessional, they were also the teams’ biggest players and most consistent performers. So eventually, I had to accept bids from the from top clubs that had taken notice of them. But I would not let them go with low transfer fees, I wanted to get as much money from the buying team as I could. Ryan Till and Adam Greene were sold to Sporting for S$800,000; Yoon Bit-Garam and Ben Taylor were sold to Chicago for S$800,000 and New York for S$900,000 respectively, Diakite and Bio Pauline were sold to Tampines for a total of S$500,000, Andy Maughan was sold to Los Angeles for S$600,000 and had sold a number of other players for a combined total of S$2million. The board wasn’t too happy with me selling some of the best players this club ever had but I had no choice since they refused to play for the team. At least now we had enough funds to make our training facilities even better and at the same time we would be able to get some better players. The funding from the transfers and the income generated from the continental competitions enabled to start scouting further down the region to look for better players. At the end of the 2011 season I wanted to look for players all over the South East Asian region; in the meantime I wanted to just go home and spend time with my wife. I had a feeling that from this season on, it was going to be a very tough and exciting time.

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Season 2012

With a lot of our best players gone, I knew I had to replace them with better players. The tough part was finding players who wanted to play for us. So I send the scouts once again to look all over Singapore, South East Asia and the rest of the Asian continent thanks to the board allowing me to expand our scouting area. But they did say that I will have this expanded area only if we were able to consistently compete in the Asian Champions League. A few weeks before the season started, the scouts came back to me with some decent rated players who were interested in making the jump to the S-League. Thanks to the sales of players and the continental competition revenue, the board gave me a transfer budget of S$380,000 to play around with. I didn’t want to use all the cash just in case so I made the minimum bids for the players. It worked and I managed to get Hariss Harun, Gariel Obatola from Young Lions, Jamil Ali from Sengkang, Abzal Zhumabaev from Almaty, Iqbol Akromov from Neftchi Ferghana, Charley Hayward on a free transfer, Titus James from Johor SAC, Victor Iqbonefo from Persipura, Anawin Chuchine and Chao Pengfei from Dalian (S). The media was extremely excited about these buys and were already predicting that we would win the league once again. In an interview with the Straits Times and 8 Days I told the journalists that we had an extremely good chance of retaining the league but we had to give it our all. I also told them that it would take a few matches for the new players to get used to my tried and tested 4-3-2-1 formation that has been working really well for us so they should not judge them yet until they played a few games for us.

We had gotten over our friendly tour of Malaysia and we won only 2 of the 5 games we had against the Malaysian teams. I wasn’t too downhearted though because the team played extremely well even with our brand new signing starting for us. I paid a visit to my parents who were still in KL after our last game. I was glad that they were doing well and that they were very happy that I had made a pretty good success out of myself. The next day I had to return to the club to talk to my staff about the upcoming season in regards to the training and the team list. I made it known to the players that I would be implementing a rotation policy from this season onwards so that everyone would have a chance to play as long as they were training hard for the matches. I was glad to know that there were no complaints and that they too were looking forward for the season to start.

“So Mr. Hossain, would you say that the League Cup is an attainable goal for your team?” This was the question that was asked to me after the final games of the League Cup. For some reason the team goes onto the final of the competition and they loose. I still haven’t been able to figure out why we have not been able to win that trophy for some time. I told the journalist who asked me that question that even though we have been unable to win the League Cup; our primary concern was to win the S-League with all other trophies being a bonus. The regular season started immediately after the final of the League Cup against Gombak United.

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S-League & Domestic Cups

We had our first disappointment in the Singapore cup where we lost 1-2 against Geylang United. I did not know why we could not turn the amount of possession we had into more goals but I told myself that the players were still getting used to playing with each other so it would take a bit of time to get a rhythm. The media predictions in the beginning of the season said that Home United would win the S-League championship at the end of the season. I agreed with them and was quietly confident that we would succeed once again in the League. From the first game until the final game of the season against Niigata Unicorn (Singapore), it was a superb season by anyone’s expectations. Not only did we win the league by the end of the season, the team won it with 5 games to spare. It was an incredible run with all my players pulling their weight. And we managed to finish off the Super Reds 2-0 to take the league in the 28th game of the season. Everyone was ecstatic, including the chairman and the board of director. This title was the 5th consecutive one the team won. It was unbelievable as no team in the S-League managed to win the title more than 2 consecutive times in the Leagues history. We finished the season with 26 wins, 5 draws and 2 losses. Charley Hayward had proved to me that he would make an excellent replacement for the aging Indra Sahdan.

Asian Champions League

My board told me “Taking part in the Champions League is an adventure. Just go there and enjoy it.” They also said that they didn’t expect that we would go further than the group stages but we were to at least put on a good show. I agreed but knew that to get even more revenue we would have to go further than the group stages. I just wasn’t sure we would with the players we had at the moment. The draw for the group stage was made and we got stuck with Okayama FC, Sydney FC and Binh Duong. The board and I knew that these teams would be extremely tough and they wished me good luck.

The day after the draw, the newspapers were saying that Home United had absolutely no chance of even getting a third place finish in the group stages. The players had heard this during one of the training schedules and were incensed; they wanted to prove that they could do a very good job. The team proved it in our first game which was against Sydney FC by beating them 1-0 at Sydney, Australia. It was the biggest shock of the Champions League. The Australian newspapers were saying that Home United was just lucky to won since Sydney was controlling possession for the majority of the game. Other newspapers in Sydney and around other Asian countries did not give us any chance of beating the other teams both at home and away. But that was not to be, Sydney FC was beaten at home in Bishan with a 2-0 scoreline. The same happened to Okayama FC which was beaten 1-0 in Japan and 3-2 at home and Binh Duong were thrashed 5-0 in Bishan stadium and then were beaten again 2-1 in Vietnam. No one could believe that Home United qualified for the quarter finals. It was simply amazing the reaction we received from Singaporeans when they heard that one of their clubs had advanced into the quarter finals of a major Asian championship.

The media was telling people that although it was an achievement to get into the next round, we should not hold hope of getting into the semi-finals since the next opponents we would be facing was Osaka AC which was a team was far beyond us in terms of player quality, training facilities, money and other resources. The media wished up luck but did not expect us to win. Even the Japanese papers were looking down on Home United and a few stated that Osaka would “wipe the floor with us”. The home and away matches of the quarter final was a joy to watch by both fans thanks to plenty of attacking football but my team had beat the odds and gained a comfortable 2-1 home. We had lost the away leg 1-2 and drew the game on aggregate. Since it was a draw, we went on to extra time and then on to penalties which we had won 5-4.

This was the first time in the history of the Champions League that a Singaporean team had advanced to the semi-final stage. Our semi-final was against Al-Hilal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We were given absolutely no chance against this team. Al-Hilal had won the Champions League 3 times already and they were a far superior team to Osaka who we had beaten in the quarter final. I heard from my parents in KL and Vivian in Singapore that everyone was hoping that we win and go on to the finals. Apparently there was a huge screen at the Istana and Marina Bay, among other places, which would be showing the home and away legs live and for free.

The game against Al-Hilal was very fast and furious, both teams attacked from the get go and at the end we had caused a major upset in our away leg which we drew 3-3. I knew we would need those 3 away goals but I was just excited that we could draw a 3 time Asian Champion. The home leg at Bishan went even better with both team attacking over and over again. Unfortunately for Al-Hilal, they could not score a single goal but my team destroyed them by scoring 3 times to win the home leg 3-0 and 6-3 on aggregate. The scenes were incredible once the final whistle was blown with the players celebrating all over the pitch and the Al-Hilal players all standing and sitting around shocked that this happened. I could not believe it myself, we had gone to the finals and it was a great feeling.

Before the Champions League final, I talked to my parents and Vivian again from Saitama, Japan and they gave their best wishes. Our opponent in the final was Saitama United and the team was excited to play against them with the possibility of a major championship trophy getting closer and closer. I heard from the chairman that another huge screen would show the game live at the Istana and other paces all around the country and that even the Prime Minister and the President wanted to congratulate the team and I on the fantastic achievement of getting into the final. He also said that it was confirmed that they would be some of the VIP’s during the home leg of the final. I let the players know this and told them to go out and play like they have done so far.

The away leg started on a bright note with Home United attacking Saitama’s goal every chance we got. However we never managed to score but Saitama hit us twice on the break. At the end the score was 2-0 to Saitama United, so I knew that we had a lot to do in the second leg at Bishan. The home leg started off superbly in front of the many VIP’s in the stadium. We had come into the game with a 2-0 deficit and knew that we had to both score and keep Saitama from scoring. That’s exactly what we did. The team had scored 3 goals in the first 45 minutes and we knew that if we kept this up then the Champions League would be ours for the first time in its history. We went into the second half leading by 3 goals in the second leg and winning by an aggregate score of 3-2. I don’t know what happened, maybe the players lost their concentration for a bit or they were getting too cocky but Saitama started to control the game and then they scored in the 67th and then in the 78th minute. It was now 3-2 on the night. I knew that we had to score 2 more goals to win the game and I shouted out instruction to my players. Finally, Hayward scored a fantastic goal to make the score 4-2 but we needed just one more to win. To their credit, my players did the best they could but we were unsuccessful. Despite winning the exciting home leg 4-2, we had lost the final 4-4 on away goals. Saitama United were the Champions of Asia and my team was all over the pitch with some standing in shock, some lying around crying their eyes out. It was a painful match for me and the players since we were so close but everyone in the stadium including the opposing fans and the VIP’s gave us a standing ovation for coming this far and playing some exciting football. All I could do was just sit in the dugout and think about what could have been.

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The next day there was still a sense of shock at how far we were able to go in the Champions League. At the board meeting, the members all thanked me for taking United this far and were hoping that the team would be able to at least pass the group stages once again. I told them that it was very possible with the team and the facilities available that we could go past the group stage. They said that that should be the team’s aims from now on. After a short while, the chairman dismissed everyone but me. Once the room was empty, he told me that he received calls from journalists who had heard from an “inside source” that I was becoming unhappy staying at Home United and that I would be leaving after next season. I told him that I wasn’t unhappy and that I had every intention of staying at the club for the long haul. He thanked me for my commitment to the team and the told me to go for my holiday and relax for the next season.

After the meeting I walked out of the club and decided to walk to the bus station to take the bus home. On the way I bought a newspaper from a kiosk that was close to the stadium to read on the bus. I read the local and the world news and I had just started the sports section when the bus came. Once I sat down I went back to the sports section. There was an article about the recent game but I wanted to know what was going on in the EPL. There was an article about Bolton and Chelsea having difficulties winning games with their current managers. The article said that they were looking at several alternative managers should then decide not to renew the contracts of the current managers. I read on and it said that I was one of the “high profile” managers being sought after to be the new manager just in case. Just at that moment in time, I received an international call from a few friends in the US. They were saying that my alma mater’s newspaper had claimed that Kansas City Wizards and Chicago Fire were looking for a new manager and that I was top of the list of people they wanted as a manager. They also said that the newspaper had heard about the teams’ achievement in the Champions League and that they were petitioning my old university to have me give a speech during the May graduation ceremony.

I was surprised and was wondering how these big clubs even knew about me. I figured I’d ask the chairman when I came back from holiday. I was tired because of the long season and I just wanted to go back home and spend some time alone with the wife. She had come home from work by the time I returned and she was happy to hear the news from the US and about the Premiership Clubs. She had another nice surprising bonus for me; she told me that she was pregnant.

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Season 2013

Vivian and I just stayed home during the off-season. I helped around the apartment and made calls to friends and family about the upcoming addition to the family. Both sets of parents were excited about becoming grand-parents in about nine months. In the meantime, we were discussing all of the rumors surrounding my manager-ship at Home United and about possible moves to another club should an offer come in. The both of us decided that it would be best to stay in Singapore for the time being as both of us wanted our child to grow up and be educated over here. We also wanted both sets of relatives to be close by to provide family support.

Back at the club, I had a talk with the returned players and told them that we had to try an repeat the highs we had last season. I reminded them that they could go past the group stages of the ACL because the team had already proved to everyone that we were perfectly capable of such an amazing feat. After talking to the players and my backroom staff, I went back to my office to take care of several managerial tasks. I just sat in my chair when my personal assistant rang saying that I had an urgent call on the line. “Good afternoon Mr. Hossain, this is John Guppy speaking. I am the chairman of Chicago Fire in the American MLS”. I was extremely surprised upon getting this call. “The club has decided to dispense with the services of the current manager and after some discussion, would like you offer you the position of manager in this great franchise”. He then went on to tell me that he would be offering me about USD$4,000 a week which really was a lot of money compared to the S$975 per week I was earning now. But I had to decline the offer since Vivian didn’t want to go back to the US at this point in time and I didn’t want to leave her to deal with the pregnancy alone.

The rest of the day went by real quick. I was glad that training was over because all I wanted to do was to go home and relax with Vivian. I knew that we could comfortably live in Singapore with our combined salaries so I didn’t envision any financial problems. She was earning about S$9,000 a month without bonus’s so we were pretty set for the foreseeable future. Before leaving the club for home, I also received calls from Phil Gartside and Alexandre Gaydamak from Bolton Wanderers and Portsmouth respectively offering me the manager job at their clubs.

The next day, someone leaked to the press that I had refused to manage Chicago, Bolton and Portsmouth. The board said that they were impressed with my dedication to the club and that they would be looking to improve my current contract to show their thanks. Journalists were bit surprised that I refused positions at these higher reputation clubs but I told them that I was going to be at Home United for the foreseeable future. I had no intention of leaving my post without winning the Champions League at least a couple of times. I also told them that I was hoping that Home United’s successes would help to develop more footballing talent in Singapore. One of the journalists from the BBC wanted to schedule an interview with me, so I asked her to contact my Personal Assistant and set up a time for an interview. After the chat with the press I went back to oversee the training by the coaches. In a few days we were going to leave for a tour of Indonesia which I thought would be pretty exciting.

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S-League and Domestic Cups.

The tour of Indonesia had gone really well. The team won all the games against the opposition and was in high spirits on our return to Singapore. The actual S-League season was due to start in a few days with the start of the League Cup. This was one trophy that I wanted to win very much and was unsuccessful so far. Home United was put into the Quarter finals against Dalian (S). I think the League Cup must be a bogey competition for my team as we lost against them heavily by a score of 6-1. Although the League Cup was out of our hands, we did get to regain the Singapore Cup by beating Dalian (S) is an exciting match with Home United the winners in a close 4-2 victory. This was our first trophy of the season and it felt really good to win it.

The team flourished in the S-League. Journalists were saying that it was almost impossible to beat us in the league. I felt that way too when I saw the players take on our different opponents with most of them being beaten or just managing to get a draw. In the end we had run away with the league once against after just 26 games. We ended that season by finishing with 28 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses which was amazing by most league standards.

As we entered the different competitions, we kept on earning more and more revenue until our overall balance was just about S$10 million. This was amazing when considering that when I took over in 2007 there was only about $2million in the clubs’ bank account. The board was really happy with all the achievements that came to the club which was a really good sign. After the final game of the season, the chairman called me into his office to offer me a new contract. This contract would be from 2013 to 2016 and I would be given a weekly salary of S$1,000 a week. The chairman had said that the club had to be careful with wages so that it doesn’t spiral out of control, so I can look forward to increases of a few hundred dollars in every subsequent contract that I sign. I was happy with that and renewed my stay at HUFC until 2016.

South East Asian Club Championship

The team qualified for the SEA Club Championship once again thanks to our first place finish. This time we were grouped with KTB and MCTPC. We had actually won this trophy in 2009 and 2011 and were very confident that we would win it in 2013 without any problems. Our games went pretty well with a 1-1 draw with KTB and a 5-1 win over MCTPC making it possible for us to get into the quarter finals against Arema. We were confident going onto the pitch that we would be able to easily win against the Indonesians since we played them in our friendly at the beginning of this season. However, Arema had no intention of lying down and getting destroyed by Home United as from the starting whistle they started to attack our goal like crazy. They ran over us from the beginning and defeated us 5-2 on live television. It was embarrassing but I hoped that we would be facing them again soon to avenge this defeat.

Asian Champions League

The ACL was a competition where my team wanted to prove that Singaporean clubs could be a force to be reckoned with. We proved that last season when we made it to the finals and almost won the Championship. This season we made getting into the quarter finals our main target. We were put into a group with Melbourne Victory, Osaka AC and Beijing. We had a slight scare against Melbourne but in the end we managed to get into the quarter finals by topping our group by registering 4 wins and 2 losses.

In the Quarter finals we faced off against the more powerful Al-Ittihad of Saudi Arabia. It seemed that on paper they over-ran us on every department. But my players wanted to show people that they were not scared of any of the bigger teams and they did just that; the players played superb football and managed to draw the first leg 1-1 and win the second leg at home by a score of 4-1. Now we had to look forward to the semi finals once again.

In the semi-final, we were placed against the favored Seongnam of Korea. This was a very tough game and we lost the first leg 2-1 despite playing as hard as possible. However the team managed to turn themselves around in the second leg by winning at home 3-1 to send us to the final of the Champions League once again with an aggregate score of 4-3. It was a close game but I was glad to be in the finals again.

The finals so the ACL was against Saitama United once again. They once again proved to us that they were tough opponents. Based on last years final I knew that we had a strong chance of beating them this time; I was so wrong. The players went out on to the field and then, once the whistle blew, my team just collapsed. I guess I could say that we were too cocky and let last seasons near success get into our heads. We were bad in every department especially in attack and I felt we deserved the end result over the 2 legs; in the first leg we lost 1-3 and in the second leg at home we lost again by a score of 2-1. It was a disappointing end to the game. The players knew that they had messed up but I couldn’t become angry at them yet. I told them that they were right to be embarrassed about what happened on the field; so to not be embarrassed again next season, we should step up the way the team plays on the pitch.