A poor year for local football, but there's hope...

Earlier this week, the Singaporean football team, also known as the Lions, suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Vietnam, ending their hopes of being crowned champions of South-East Asia for the third time.

In a year that has not been kind to Singapore football, all hope of festive cheer was pinned on Radojko Avramovic and his Lions to bring some joy to the fraternity, but there would be no merry end to 2010.

Three domestic titles in local football were all claimed by foreign teams who raided the S-League; the national side fumbled chance after chance to qualify for the Asian Cup finals; then the national under-23 team returned from last month's Guangzhou Asian Games with their tail between their legs - even before the opening ceremony; and S-League clubs are still in intensive care fighting a financial cancer, struggling to keep their heads above water.

Speaking to The Straits Times on Thursday, Football Association of Singapore (FAS) president Zainudin Nordin did not mask his displeasure after the country's first group stage exit in the tournament since 2002.

'The performance was below expectations and I'm very disappointed in the outcome,' said Singapore's top football man.

'But we have to move forward, and focus on the pipeline rather than the current team. Many of the players in the national team are in their 30s and are reaching the end of their careers. Our technical people will have to go back to the drawing board and blood new players.'

Thankfully, instead of complaining about what went wrong and who should coach the national squad, the Football Association of Singapore and S-League clubs are focusing on player development. Not many successful footballing nations have their front line led by a 40-year old and the fact that almost half of the starting line-up are not born and bred Singaporeans is a cause for concern.

Even as the inquest continues into Singapore's AFF Suzuki Cup fiasco, plans are already in motion to boost the quality of youngsters that will form the spine of future national teams.The FAS has revealed that it is in talks with Tottenham and Aston Villa to bring budding young Singaporeans to England next year for trials. Members of the Youth Olympic team have also received offers from top European teams such as Werder Bremen and I do hope that excuses such as "focusing on studies" or homesickness do not arise and prevent these players from living their dreams.

Although the road to being offered a professional contract will be long and hard, the exposure to training techniques and the professionalism of foreign leagues will be vital in the development in young talent. This tactic may take time to reap reward but what it can provide is a sustainable flow of talent to support what the potential of the national team.

Although the performance in the Suzuki Cup was dismal, coming extremely close to qualifying for the Asian Cup Finals and going further than any other local team in history in terms of World Cup Qualification do prove that the system set in place by Raddy Avramovic is slowly but surely producing results.

Yes, players like Aleksander Duric and John Wilkinson may be past their prime and should not play any further part in the national team set up but young ones like Shahril Ishak, Hasan Sunny and a fit Qiu Li definitely have what it takes to beat any team in the region and with better training and infrastructure, may even go on to become one of the top Asian teams.

So to all local football fans, don't lose faith in your national team or the S-League. This year was surely one of the worst the local football scene has ever faced but the only way it can go now is up. Let's do away with the harsh criticism and lets focus on the positives instead of the negatives.

The FAS and S-League need our support to be the driving force of their 5-year plan so lets get behind them and make football enjoyable again for us and the future of Singapore.