Aide thanks players and fans
Singapore Under-23 coach Aide Iskandar has broken his silence after his resignation on Thursday night.
In a lengthy Facebook post yesterday, the 40-year-old thanked his family, assistant coaches, friends, football stakeholders and the media.
He told the players, who crashed out of the SEA Games football tournament after losing 1-0 to Indonesia at the group stage: (To) all my players - I appreciate all the efforts all of you put in during this journey and appreciate the sacrifices made. As Coach Carter said, 'I've came to coach players and you became students. I came to teach boys and you became men'."
Despite some abusive fans - even his wife and three children were not spared - Aide had this to say: "There were many of you that cheered us regardless of results. In the last game, despite the rain, you guys sang and cheered us all the way.
"Even when we were knocked out, thousands of you stayed behind to applaud us and continued singing. Thank you for showing the team and Singapore what true Sportsmanship is all about."
Before signing off as "Singapore's son Aide Iskandar", he expressed his hopes of seeing fans give their unconditional support to the national teams.
"To Singapore: Winning maybe very important but it is not everything in sports - we must adopt the right values of winning gloriously and we must also learn on how to embrace losing graciously.
"Getting behind your team through thick and thin defines who we are!"
- ALI KASIM
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