photo from Lam Ka Wai’s facebook

Having won the HongKong 1st Division League title for the past 2 seasons with Kitchee SC and represented HongKong National Team since he was 20 years old, Lam Ka Wai is living a football dream where many HongKong youngster can only dream of. So what makes him so special for the HongKong NT? How he feels about playing against Barcelona? And his thought on the winning goal which he scored against Singapore. Junpiter Futbol flew to HongKong to catch up with this latest HongKong football sensation while he shares with you what is his football…

HONGKONG FOOTBALL

JPF: Kitchee SC has been crowned HongKong League Champion for the past
few years. Tell us more about that.

LKW: Kitchee has been improving for the past 2 years under our Spanish coach, Josep Gombau. He instilled the typical Barcelona’s style of passing game and a 4-3-3 formation into the team. Unlike previous local coaches, the play was always very defensive such as using a formation of 4-5-1 and etc. Because of this new style and exposure, HongKong National Team (NT) now has a pool of better players these days.

JPF: How is your daily football training like?

LKW: As Kitchee does not have its own dedicated stadium, all the training sessions’ timings are based on the availability of the public stadium. Generally the training sessions are held in the late morning for 2 hours.  During pre-season, other than the usual daily training, we do weight training 1-2 times a week.

JPF: Able to tell us more about HongKong League?

LKW: The resources are limited in our professional league. One of the biggest challenges is the availability of the stadium – the teams share one stadium. Only South China team (the most supported club in HongKong League) has their own dedicated training ground.

JPF: Able to share with us on HongKong football culture?

LKW: We have a lot of public football courts. To be precise, they are actually hard courts. Perhaps that is one of our HongKong’s unique football cultures. You find young players play hard courts more often than on a proper football grass pitch. Typically, people will just gather in the evening and form teams to play on these public hard courts. I, myself, grew up playing on hard courts. However, as HongKong is constantly developing and progressing, the public hard courts are slowly diminishing and harder to find. They are getting lesser by the day, unlike the Eighties.

Professional teams will also hold annual football trial to recruit young players too. To allow the young players to progress professionally, Kitchee SC collaborated with a local school where the young players received not only football training but academic education too.

photo from Lam Ka Wai’s facebook

HONGKONG NATIONAL TEAM

JPF: What do you think are your strengths which gave you a place in the HongKong NT?

LKW: Other than being a team player, I think it’s my creativity. Honestly, I am not a very skilled player but I do understand my position and role well. In our current HongKong football scene, there isn’t much such players with similar traits and I think that is the reason why I managed to secure a place in the NT. 

JPF: As a key member of HongKong NT, is there a target set by HKFA (HongKong Football Association) for the next coming few years?

LKW: Nothing major that I know of but our newly appointed NT’s coach, Ernest Merrick, has shared with us that he wants to improve HongKong’s world-ranking position; target top100 position. The FA has been stealthily arranging plenty of friendlies in the coming months for this advancement.

JPF: You are named the Shunsuke Nakamura (Former Celtics and Japan’s midfielder) of HongKong National Team, how does this compliment come about and how do you feel about that?

LKW: Well, its actually a misunderstanding. I am not named as the Nakamura of HongKong NT. Personally, I am a great admirer of Nakamura.

People say that probably because I share some similarities with Nakamura.  Both Nakamura and I play the same centre midfield position and we are both left-legged!

HONGKONG VS SINGAPORE

JPF: You scored the winning goal against Singapore in the friendly back in June 2012, how did you feel about that goal?

LKW: I was delighted! Actually as a centre midfielder, I seldom score a lot of goals in my career. So when I scored against Singapore, I was really happy especially when it was a winning goal. Furthermore, that was the first game under our new coach. Every player wanted to impress him. I hope I had impressed him with that goal I scored!

JPF: Which Singapore player left you with the deepest impression during the HongKong vs Singapore friendly?

LKW: Singapore’s number-9 (Aleksander Duric) and number-11 (Agu Casmir). Especially that number-11 (Agu Casmir), he could hold the ball very well but I felt that it was a pity that he did not have much support whenever he had the ball up front.

JPF: Prior to that game against Singapore, did you know anything about Singapore football?

LKW: Honestly, I did not know much about Singapore football except the fact that S-League teams comprises players from different nationalities like French, Japanese, Chinese and etc. I had played against S-League teams in the Singapore Cup and AFC Cup, they were rather strong!

photo from explow.com

PERSONAL

JPF: Which is the football club you dream of playing for?

LKW: Barcelona lah! That is the best team in the world!

JPF: Who is your favorite player?

LKW: I like David Silva from Spain & Manchester City. Because both of us are left-legged and I think he is one of the world’s best players.

JPF: Who were some of the big names you have played against?

LKW: There are actually a lot. I played against Ronaldinho when he was here with Brazil for a friendly with HongKong.  I also had the opportunity to play against one of my personal favorites, Shunsuke Nakamura of Japan, when HongKong lost 0-6 to Japan!

JPF: Would you ever thought of plying your trade in the S-League?

LKW: I won’t rule out any possibility but it depends on the offer.

JPF: Any advice for the young players out there who inspires to be a professional
footballer like you?

LKW: Self-confidence. Even when I was playing against a big team such as Barcelona, I was not afraid to take the game to them. If you play with confidence, naturally you will be able to perform and will be able to play a good game.