The Balkans and the the S-League

The Balkan region has proven to be a good source of talented players over the years, at least where the S-League is concerned. SAFFC, in particular, has benefited tremendously from the services of players like Nenad Bacina, Mirko Grabovac, Ivan Jerkovic, Aleksandar Duric (technically Australian when he arrived, but nonetheless of Balkan extraction) and Mislav Karoglan. Now it seems that Tampines Rovers are the latest club to buy into this proven trend. Their four new foreign players all hail from this eastern European region; one of them, wide man Gligor Gligorov, is a full Macedonian international while another, Croat Davor Piskor, was once teammates with a certain Luka Modric.

It has to be said that Tampines have done smart business this window. While this may seem an at best dubious statement - given that Rovers have released players of the standard of Seiji Kaneko - it has been proven that signing multiple players from the same region has generally done good for the buying club. Think of those days when Brazilians Peres de Oliveira and Egmar Goncalves were banging in the goals for Home United, or (then) Nigerians Agu Casmir and Itimi Dickson were doing their best Adebayor and Lennon impersonations in Woodlands jerseys. Of course, the players must be of sufficient calibre to make their mark, but once that box has been ticked it is almost always the case that should these foreigners find themselves playing alongside teammates who speak their language and are used to the same cultural and tactical upbringing as they are, it becomes only a matter of time before their blend of ability and chemistry translates into cold hard results.

Balkan players, amongst other ethnicities, have seemed to fare best in the S-League over the years. While there have been outstandingly good individuals from all around the globe like Thailand's Therdsak Chaiman, Australia's Brendan Santalab and Japanese-Canadian poster boy Issey Nakajima-Farran stomping around Singapore's fields, the collective standard of Balkan players in the S-League has been consistently high. Why and how so?

Firstly, players from there tend to be physically more gifted than players from regions that S-League clubs typically forage around (Korea, Japan and Thailand). Their superior build and fitness automatically translate into a huge advantage over the stereotypical small-sized S-League player.

Secondly, many of these players are full professionals with some degree of experience in continental competition and as such are generally used to the mental and psychological demands of modern professional football. A fair number of the S-League's players, whether Singaporean or foreign, drift in and out of contracts, juggle football with studies or other jobs and find the idea of playing in other countries, let alone in front of crowds numbering tens of thousands, completely alien. Mislav Karoglan, for example, has Europa League experience with a previous club, MSK Zilina and was an Under-21 international, and the mental toughness garnered over the course of career was plain to see in many of SAFFC's games last season.

Tampines bring with them their new Balkan contingent to the season-opening Community Shield clash tomorrow against Home United, themselves having added the former Albirex man Shotaro Ihata to an already formidable front line. There should be a great deal of tactical interest in this game, and I will most probably be there observing and judging whether Tampines' new Balkan experiment seems set for glory or not.