Snap Insight: Lions’ historic feat shows why Gavin Lee deserves to be Singapore's next football head coach

SINGAPORE: On the 100th day of Forrest Li’s tenure as the new Football Association of Singapore President (FAS), he made a bold declaration: "Eventually what I hope is people really care, and football … becomes part of a regular family dinner table topic."

“I hope one day, when we announce the next national team coach, that will be the conversation at every dinner table in every house that evening in Singapore," he added. Well, that time has come. 

Because the name that is on every football fan’s lips right now is Gavin Lee, who will be forever remembered as the man who made history for Singapore football. 

On Tuesday (Nov 18), the Singapore men’s national football team beat Hong Kong 2-1, qualifying for the first time for the finals of the Asian Cup on merit.

But Lee is currently the Lions’ interim head coach. So hear me out, Mr Li: He has shown he deserves the job permanently.

Given that the Asian Cup finals in Saudi Arabia are some 14 months away, you may be tempted to listen to your advisers to appoint a named coach, one perhaps with a track record at a high level, like some among those that the FAS has seemingly interviewed for the past few months.

They may give you technical reasons, like how Lee has never coached at any major international tournament, and during his time as head coach of Tampines, only has one Singapore Cup trophy to his name.

Or they may tell you that while this was indeed a historic moment, Lee also benefited from the Asian Cup Finals having expanded to 24 teams since 2019, from 16 before, thus creating more qualifying opportunities for the Lions.

They may also argue that the group Singapore was in was perhaps the weakest of all qualifying groups, with the highest-ranked India team freefalling in form