Young Lions FC

This article is about of the developmental Singapore Premier League club. For the national age-group team, see Singapore national under-23 football team.

Young Lions Football Club, commonly known as Young Lions, is a developmental football club based in Kallang, Singapore, which competes in the Singapore Premier League. The team is under the control of the Football Association of Singapore.

Young Lions

Full name	Young Lions Football Club
Nickname(s)	Merlion Cubs
Founded	2002; 23 years ago (2002)
Ground	Jalan Besar Stadium
Capacity	7,100[1]
Owner	Football Association of Singapore
Chairman	Farehan Hussein
Head coach	Firdaus Kassim
League	Singapore Premier League
2023	Singapore Premier League, 9th of 9
Home colours Away colours
Current season

Young Lions are one of the few football clubs in the world made up of young Singaporean footballers serving their compulsory two-year national service, which places an age restriction on team members while playing in a top-flight professional league. Players are on loan from several local Singapore Premier League clubs, and would spend two years with the side before returning.

Young Lions play their home matches at the Jalan Besar Stadium. Their best league finish was third, which they achieved in 2004 and 2006.

History

By entering the Young Lions into the S.League, the FAS hopes to expose young players to top-level competition, thus helping to prepare them for international tournaments such as the Southeast Asian Games. While the bulk of the Young Lions squad is made up of members of Singapore's national under-23 team, the club also takes in promising young foreign players (e.g. Luka Savić). However, foreign players are normally only recruited into the Young Lions squad if they could potentially change their nationality to Singaporean and be eligible to play international football for Singapore at some point in the future.

In 2023, Young Lions signed the Japanese duo Jun Kobayashi and Kan Kobayashi from Albirex Niigata (S), the first foreign players since the French Benjamin Bertrand from Tours in 2016. In preparation for the 2024–25 Singapore Premier League season, Young Lions signed additional two Japanese players, Kaisei Ogawa and Itsuki Enomoto, and the Australian Rashid Hayek from Western United, making it the first time the club has five foreigners in the squad. On 28 March 2025, Young Lions recorded their highest ever win during the 2024–25 Singapore Cup fixture against Albirex. Zikos Chua, and later Kaisei Ogawa, became the first players in the club history to score four goals in one match.

Malaysian domestic competition

In 2011, the Football Association of Singapore and the Football Association of Malaysia reached an agreement that would see greater cooperation between the two nations. One of the intended avenues would see Young Lions play in the Malaysian Super League and Malaysia Cup from 2012. The squad will be permitted up to five local players over the age of 14–16 players, as well as a number of overseas players in accordance with the quota set out by the rules of the Malaysian competitions.^[2] Ultimately, a new team was created, the LionsXII, while the Young Lions remained in the S.League.

National Football Academy

Most of the Young Lions players come from the NFA (National Football Academy) and new players (from the NFA) will be promoted to the Young Lions squad every season.

The National Football Academy enters both the Singapore NFA U-17 and Singapore NFA U-18 teams into the Prime League to allow their players to gain more exposure and match experience by playing against older and more established players.^[3]

Stadium

Pitchside view of the Jalan Besar Stadium, November 2008

Main article: Jalan Besar Stadium

Young Lions had played at the Jalan Besar Stadium since their inception of participating in the S.League. The stadium can holds up a seating capacity of 8,000. In 2012, As part of the LionsXII's sponsorship by Kingsmen, a local fan club, the King George's Stand was built using a removable stand, increasing the stadium's capacity to 10,000.

On 30 October 2012, an LED scoreboard was implemented at the Gallery stand to provide better quality video to the spectators, allowing replay video highlights of the action on the field during matchdays. Two new screens were also placed at the two ends of the Grandstand, North and South, to enable better match experience for the Gallery fans.

Sponsorship and naming history

Year	Sponsors	Club name	References
2011–2015	Courts	Courts Young Lions	[4]
2016–2017	Garena	Garena Young Lions	[5]

Players

As of 4 May 2025^[6]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK  SGP Aizil Yazid 2 DF  SGP Raoul Suhaimi 3 DF  SGP Aqil Yazid 4 DF  SGP Ikram Mikhail 5 DF  JPN Jun Kobayashi 6 DF  SGP Syafi'i Hilman 7 MF  JPN Kan Kobayashi (vice-captain) 8 MF  JPN Kaisei Ogawa 10 FW  SGP Amir Syafiz 12 FW  SGP Danish Haziq 13 GK  SGP Rauf Erwan 14 DF  SGP Wong Ngang Haang 15 DF  SGP Kieran Teo 17 DF  SGP Iryan Fandi (on loan from Hougang United) 18 FW  SGP Samuel Pillai 19 DF  SGP Andrew Aw 20 MF  SGP Fairuz Fazli 21 DF  SGP Danish Haqimi 22 DF  SGP Febryan Pradana 23 GK  SGP Travis Ang 24 FW  SGP Danish Qayyum

No. Pos. Nation Player 25 MF  SGP Izz Anaqi 26 DF  SGP Nur Adam Abdullah 27 MF  SGP Sahoo Garv 28 MF  SGP Ryu Hardy 29 MF  SGP Rasul Ramli 31 DF  SGP Ryaan Sanizal (captain) 32 GK  SGP Umayr Sujuandy 35 GK  SGP Firman Nabil 40 DF  SGP Haziq Riduan 41 DF  SGP Akash Rai 45 MF  SGP Nyqil Iyyan 46 MF  SGP Ikmal Hazlan 47 FW  SGP Ryan Vishal 49 DF  SGP Zaki Jumlan 52 FW  SGP Lim Zheng Wu 53 DF  SGP Bill Mamadou (on loan from Lion City Sailors) 56 MF  SGP Loo Kai Sheng 77 DF  SGP Danial Crichton — MF  SGP Iman Hakim — MF  SGP Syady Sufwan

Players on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player

Technical staff

Position	Name
Team manager	Sakthi Vel Ganesan
Head coach	Firdaus Kassim
Assistant coach	Fadzuhasny Juraimi Afiq Yahya
Goalkeeper coach	Ahmadulhaq Che Omar
Fitness coach	Donald Wan
Physiotherapist	Alex Poon
Sports trainer	Ryan Wang Jasmori Rasip
Equipment officer	Omar Mohamed

Source:^[7]

Performance in domestic competitions

Season	League	Pos.	Pld	W	D	L	GS	GA	Pts	Singapore Cup	League Cup
2003	S.League	12th	33	6	1–5	21	33	77	25	Quarter-finals
2004		3rd	27	14	5	8	74	52	47	Quarter-finals
2005		6th	27	12	6	9	44	37	42	Quarter-finals
2006		3rd	30	15	7	8	67	43	52	Quarter-finals
2007		5th	33	13	8	12	45	54	47	Preliminary	Withdrew
2008		9th	33	7	10	16	30	46	31	Semi-finals	Semi-finals
2009		8th	30	9	7	14	33	48	34	Preliminary	Group stage
2010		9th	33	9	12	12	37	45	34	Semi-finals	Preliminary
2011		9th	33	7	6	20	33	54	27	Withdrew	Withdrew
2012		10th	24	6	5	13	25	37	23	Withdrew	Group stage
2013		12th	27	5	3	19	20	52	18	Preliminary	Group stage
2014		10th	27	7	5	15	38	54	26	Did not participate	Did not participate
2015		9th	27	7	6	14	30	43	27	Did not participate	Did not participate
2016		9th	24	2	3	19	23	70	9	Preliminary	Did not participate
2017		9th	24	1	3	20	10	62	6	Did not participate	Did not participate
2018	Singapore Premier League	7th	24	5	6	13	25	46	21	Did not participate
2019		8th	24	6	4	14	21	38	22	Did not participate
2020		7th	14	3	0	11	12	38	9	Not Held
2021		7th	21	4	4	13	26	50	16	Not Held
2022		8th	28	2	2	24	34	103	8	Group Stage
2023		9th	24	1	2	21	24	76	5	Group Stage

• 2003 saw the introduction of penalty shoot-outs if a match ended in a draw in regular time. Winners of penalty shoot-outs gained two points instead of one.

Notable foreign players

• Craig Foster (1991)
• Kazeem Babatunde (2003–2004)
• Vladan Seric (2004)
• Greg Nwokolo (2005)
• Moudourou Moise (2006–2008)
• Daniel Hammond (2008)
• Obadin Aikhena (2008–2009)
• Yang Mu (2009)
• Luka Savić (2010)
• Sirina Camara (2012)
• Jonathan Toto (2012–2013)
• Sherif El-Masri (2012–2015)
• Benjamin Lee (2013)
• Jordan Webb (2014–2016)
• Benjamin Bertrand (2016)
• Armin Maier (2017)
• Jun Kobayashi (2023–present)
• Kan Kobayashi (2023–present)
• Itsuki Enomoto (2024)
• Kaisei Ogawa (2024–present)

Coaching history

No.	Manager/Head coach	Years
1	P. N. Sivaji	1 January 2003–31 December 2003
2	Kim Poulsen	1 January 2004–31 December 2004
3	Fandi Ahmad	1 January 2005–31 December 2006
4	V. Sundramoorthy	1 January 2007–31 December 2008
5	Terry Pathmanathan	1 January 2009–13 January 2010
6	V. Sundramoorthy (2)	14 January 2010–31 December 2010
7	Robin Chitrakar	1 January 2011–13 January 2013
8	Aide Iskandar	14 January 2013–11 June 2015
9	Jürgen Raab	1 July 2015–13 January 2016
10	Richard Tardy	1 January 2016–15 February 2016
11	Patrick Hesse	15 February 2016–9 November 2016
12	V. Selvaraj	9 November 2016–17 May 2017
13	Richard Tardy (2)	17 May 2017–27 July 2017
14	Vincent Subramaniam	5 August 2017–14 December 2017
15	Fandi Ahmad (2)	14 December 2017–31 December 2019
16	Nazri Nasir	1 January 2020–10 March 2021
17	Philippe Aw	11 March 2021–31 December 2021
18	Nazri Nasir (2)	1 January 2022–31 December 2022
19	Philippe Aw (2)	1 January 2023–18 May 2023
20	Fadzuhasny Juraimi (interim)	18 May 2023–12 July 2023
21	Nazri Nasir (3)	13 July 2023–16 January 2025
22	Fadzuhasny Juraimi (interim) (2)	16 January 2025–25 June 2025
23	Firdaus Kassim	25 June 2025–present

Records and statistics

As of 8 June 2025

Most appearances

Rank	Player	Years	Appearances
1	Afiq Yunos	2008–2013	114
2	Syahrul Sazali	2016–2019 2021–2022	101
	Shahril Ishak	2003–2006
3	Syazwan Buhari	2010–2015	87
	Amirul Adli	2011–2017
	Hariss Harun	2007–2011
	Sherif El-Masri	2012–2015
7	Faritz Abdul Hameed	2009–2012	83
8	Hami Syahin	2015–2018 2020–2021	82
9	Khairul Amri	2004–2008, 2016	79

Top scorers

Rank	Player	Appearances	Goals
1	Khairul Amri	79	49
2	Agu Casmir	34	31
3	Shahril Ishak	101	20
4	Sherif El-Masri	87	18
	Qiu Li	27
6	Khairul Nizam	57	15
7	Jordan Webb	39	14
	Shi Jiayi	66
9	Ilhan Fandi	33	13
	Itsuki Enomoto	19
10	Sahil Suhaimi	38	12

Team records

Biggest wins

• 7–1 vs Sinchi on 23 September 2004
• 7–1 vs Albirex Niigata (S) on 28 March 2025

Heaviest Defeats

• 1–10 vs Lion City Sailors (13 August 2022)

Youngest goal scorer

• Khairin Nadim, 16 years 6 months and 9 days (On 17 November 2020 vs Tampines Rovers)

Oldest goal scorer

• Khairul Amri, 31 years 6 months and 11 days (On 1 April 2023 vs Geylang International)

Youngest debutant

• Raoul Suhaimi, 15 years 7 months 27 days (15 May 2021 vs Albirex Niigata (S))

Notable Hat-tricks

Key
4	Player scored four goals
*	Opponent was the home team

Notable players to scored a hat-trick for the club

Player	Score	Opponent	Date
Agu Casmir	7–1	Sinchi	23 September 2004
Qiu Li	5–0	Geylang United	22 March 2006
Khairul Amri	4–2	Woodlands Wellington	19 May 2006
Qiu Li (2)	0–5	Balestier Khalsa*	7 June 2006
Khairul Amri (2)	0–3	Sporting Afrique*	6 July 2006
Zikos Chua4	4–2	Tanjong Pagar United	8 July 2022
Kaisei Ogawa4	7–1	Albirex Niigata (S)	28 March 2025

Personal awards

Domestic

• League Young Player of the Year
  • Hariss Harun (2010)

Others

• People's Choice Award
  • Agu Casmir (2004)
  • Khairul Amri (2006)
  • Safuwan Baharudin (2011)

See also

• Singapore FA