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Football • Address weaknesses with consistency and resolve
The Straits Times
|December 23, 2025
Recent comments on Singapore's Under-22 football team's SEA Games performance have sparked a necessary debate about the state of local football (SEA Games 2025: Outmuscled, outpaced and outlasted - SNOC blasts Young Lions, Dec 20).
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While frustration over the results is understandable, focusing primarily on players' attitudes risks oversimplifying a longstanding and complex problem.
When a team is described as being outmuscled, outpaced and outlasted, the causes extend well beyond match-day behaviour.
Players are ultimately the end-product of the development system they emerge from.
Issues such as physical preparation, competitive exposure, coaching continuity and the integration of sports science are shaped over many years, not within a single tournament cycle.
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