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THE NEW PAPER
Singapore 22-01-03 - IF former Southampton forwards David Hirst and Matthew Le Tissier are to be believed, the key to Singapore's footballing future lies in a smile.
In town for the Caltex Challenge, Hirst and Le Tissier took some time off from their golfing schedule to impart some of their skills to the Singapore Under-16s at the National Stadium yesterday.
As the Saints' ex-strikers took the 20 or so boys through some shooting drills, most of them couldn't hit the wide side of a barn with their wayward shooting.
The future of Singapore football looked bleak, but after 20 minutes of not scoring a goal, the duo went up to the players with a simple instruction - smile. It was as simple as that, and it worked, too.
The boys suddenly couldn't miss even if they tried, and where once there was respectful silence, the bunch started laughing and clapping each goal. They instantly became consummate finishers.
After the session, Hirst explained his brilliant strategy.
"The boys were so tense; they all had their heads down with each shot they missed," said Hirst.
"So I told them to smile and enjoy the football. They became relaxed and started hitting the back of the net. You have to play with a smile on your face."
If only Hirst had revealed this technique to the Lions during the Tiger Cup, we might have scored a few more goals.
After the hour-long session, Hirst felt that the boys all had the technique and necessary skills, and are really not all that different from the youths their age back home in England.
Neither he nor Le Tissier has seen the England side at that level, so they couldn't make any comparisons, but Le Tissier felt that our lads had what it takes to become good football players.
"They're all enthusiastic and they want to learn. Hopefully they've learned a little bit from me and David," he explained.
"But they learned to enjoy themselves and that's important. It put a smile on their face."
Le Tissier added that, at this age, it's really hard to gauge how good they will be in the future, but what they needed to do was to keep their enthusiasm and willingness to learn.
It wasn't really fair to compare them to the current crop of teenage prodigies in England such as Wayne Rooney, James Milner and Neil Mellor.
"They're exceptional, and very rare," said Le Tissier.
Hirst immediately nodded and quickly reiterated: "For every one of those you see, there are about a thousand who'd never make it."
Both agreed that it wouldn't be fair to compare our boys, or any footballing youths, to those exceptional talents.
The duo also treated the boys to a glimpse of their former glory.
Le Tissier volleyed a shot from outside the box right into the top-left corner, and followed that up later with another long-range shot to the opposite corner.
Hirst, not to be outshone, smashed a ball onto the underside of the bar and quickly looked to the non-existent linesmen to confirm that the ball had indeed crossed the line.
It was a rare sight to behold from these two wonderfully gifted players, as Hirst joked that no one, including himself, has seen that trademark Hirst finishing for "about six years now."
When asked what they thought our young boys learned from the two of them, Le Tissier cheekily said: "They learned to drag a shot wide with their left foot."
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