Scott Sellars had a long 20 years of playing experience with Leeds, Blackburn, Newcastle and Bolton in England. And finally after hanging up his boots, Scott was appointed as the head coach of the youth team at Platt Lane, Manchester City academy.
Currently, the former England U-21 representative is here in Singapore, leading Manchester City U-15 in the 24th Canon Lion City Cup tournament. Junpiter Futbol got up-close with him at Jalan Besar Stadium to touch on Singapore’s youth futbol development, as well as the hot topic on the “King of the Fruit”!
What do you think of Singapore futbol since you have seen Singapore U-15 & U-16 in action for the past few days?
I watched the game between Singapore U-16 and FC Porto U-15. First impression, Singapore has got some good technical players, good attacking players. Overall, the standard has been very good.
By looking at Singapore U-15 & U-16, do you think Singapore’s youth futbol development is on the right track?
Definitely yes. I think Singapore is playing the right type of futbol – playing futbol on the ground. Singapore is trying to develop technically gifted players and that’s important. By doing that, the standard of the players are going to improve.
Is there anything Singapore can do to further improve our standard?
Expose the young players to more challenges such as playing against top European teams. The current Canon Lion City Cup is one of such platforms which is obviously good for the younger players. This is the level which the players should be playing now. Sometimes when you put the best players with the best players, and play against the best players, this is how they will improve.
Who in your current team has the most potential to move up the rank, into Man City senior team in a couple of years’ time?
This is difficult as I do not want to mention anyone in particular. Based on my current team, I can see 4-5 players with huge potential to move up to the next level. However, at this age of just 15 years old, its still early to dictate who can be a top professional futbol player.
What is Man City’s chances of lifting the (Canon Lion City) Cup?
Hopefully so! There isn’t a proper league basis in England until the boys get to 16 years old. There is a lack of tournament futbol for this age. We are trying to use tournament as a way to let the boys understand how to win games. So we come here with the same objective in every tournament which we played which is to win. Whether we do or not, that’s subjective. Most of all, we would like to develop the players.
There have been some discussions on this fruit, durian, within your team, so who is going to try that before you guys return to Manchester?
Definitely not me! Yep, we have been taking about that in the hotel and we are going to get the boys to try it! I have not smell of that yet.
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