Club

Formed in 2002, the Young Lions are the developmental side for the Football Association of Singapore with the main focus of preparing for the biennial Southeast Asian Games. The team comprise of mostly Under-23 players with a handful of foreign players drafted into the squad.

The foreign players who are signed to the developmental side are mostly touted to be the players who are under the FAS’s plans to be given citizenship to represent Singapore in the future.

The initial aim of the club was to expose more young players who did not have the chance to play for the respective S.League clubs.

As most of the players are between 18 to 23 years old, some players will have to leave the team to enter the mandatory National Service. To handle an issue like this, the Young Lions are allowed to sign players at anytime of the season to reinforce their squad if a player leaves the team.

The Young Lions enjoyed their most successful seasons in 2004 and 2006 where they finished third in the S.League under Fandi Ahmad.

Current Team

The Young Lions squad this season included Amy Recha, Stanely Ng and Fadli Kamis who were all part of the 2011 Prime League winning squad of Geylang International. Former Jaguars skipper Delwinder Singh is also currently playing for the developmental side.

Sahil Suhaimi is currently the team’s top scorer with nine goals scored in this season’s S.League.

Head Coach

The Young Lions are led by Aide Iskandar, the former national skipper who led the Singapore National Team to back to back AFF Cup titles in 2004 and 2007.

He had spent almost his entire career for Home United, playing for them from 1996 to 2005. He joined Johor FA for a brief stint before returning to Singapore.

He played for Geylang International from 2007 to 2008 before joining Sengkang Punggol as a player-coach. He hung up his boots subsequently and spent a few years in the FAS before being appointed as the head coach for Young Lions last season.