Young Lions FC

This article is about the developmental S.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 Singaporean developmental football club that competes in the Singapore Premier League. The team is under the direct control of the Football Association of Singapore. The Young Lions are one of the few football clubs in the world which place an age restriction on team members while playing in a top-flight professional league.

Young Lions

Full name	Young Lions
Founded	2002 (2002)
Ground	Jalan Besar Stadium
Head Coach	Philippe Aw
League	Singapore Premier League
2021	Singapore Premier League, 8th of 8
Home colours Away colours

The Young Lions plays their league matches at the Jurong West Stadium. Their best S.League finish was third, which they achieved in 2004 and 2006.

Goal

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.

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 will see Young Lions play in the Malaysian Super League and Malaysia Cup from 2012 onwards, the first time a Singaporean team has participated in Malaysian domestic football since Singapore won the 1994 M-League and Malaysia Cup double. Although the new Singapore team will have the existing Young Lions set up at its core, 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 the team will play in.

Ultimately though, a new team was created for the Malaysia league: the LionsXII, while 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.

Performance in domestic competitions

Season	League	Pos.	P	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

• 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.

Players

As of 25 February 2023

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

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK SGP Prathip Ekamparam 2 DF SGP Raoul Suhaimi 3 DF SGP Danial Scott Crichton 4 MF SGP Jared Gallagher 5 DF JPN Jun Kobayashi 6 DF SGP Jacob Mahler (captain) 7 MF JPN Kan Kobayashi 8 MF SGP Harhys Stewart (vice captain) 9 FW SGP Zikos Chua 10 MF SGP Amir Syafiz 11 DF SGP Harith Kanadi 14 MF SGP Ryu Hardy Yussri 15 DF SGP Kieran Teo 16 FW SGP Ryan Praveen 17 DF SGP Adam Reefdy 18 FW SGP Syafi’ie Redzuan 19 FW SGP Syahadat Masnawi

No. Pos. Nation Player 20 DF SGP Ilhan Noor 21 MF SGP Iman Hakim 22 MF SGP Elijah Lim 23 DF SGP Jordan Emaviwe 24 GK SGP Wayne Chew 25 GK SGP Aizil Yazid 27 DF SGP Syafi Hilman 28 FW SGP Ameen Shah 29 DF SGP Andrew Aw 30 MF SGP Fairuz Fazli Koh 32 GK SGP Umayr Sujuandy 33 GK SGP Danial Iliya 34 DF SGP Aqil Yazid 35 GK SGP Rauf Erwan 42 MF SGP Haziq Kamarudin — DF SGP Ikram Mikhail — MF SGP Ethan Henry Pinto

Players on loan

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

No. Pos. Nation Player — DF SGP Sahffee Jubpre (National Service till 2023)

Staff

Position	Name
Team Manager	Matthew Sean & Sakthi Vel Ganesan
Head coach	Philippe Aw
Assistant coach	Fadzuhasny Juraimi
Assistant coach	Koichiro Iizuka
Assistant coach	Afiq Yahya
Goalkeeper coach	Ahmadulhaq Che Omar
Physiotherapist	Imran Khamis
Sports Trainer	Ryan Wang
Equipment Officer	Omar Mohd

Source:

See also

• Azkals Development Team, a Filipino professional football club whose players also play for the Philippines' national youth teams.

External links

• Official website
• S.League website page on Young Lions