Ian On The Red Dot

Hello everyone. I need help with something. If you are a parent with kids or a football crazy dude/gal then you might be the one to help me.

Ok. So what sort of help do I need?

I need answers to two questions.

1. Do any of you know of football training schools for kids?

The school can be public, private, semi-government funded. I need to know if anyone knows of such schools, where I can possibly get the details and if you know anyone training at such schools.

2. Do you know of any place where kids regularly gather to play football?

Ok. In Singapore, this seems like a rather stupid question because we can find kids playing football almost anywhere. Do you know of any place which is the focal point for football in your HDB estate? An example of such a possible place could be the street soccer court on the hill at Telok Blangah.

Really need some help here. So if you do have any information, please do share. Thanks. Also, if you do leave a comment, may I also email you further. Thanks.

Yesterday, Owen Hargreaves scored the winning goal against Arsenal from a free kick just outside the penalty box. I think I’ve only seen him take two free kicks and he has scored from both. I’m pretty sure he must have taken more than 2 free kicks during this season - he has taken 28 shots this season - but whatever that number is, it is less than the number of free kicks taken by Ronaldo.

Cristiano Ronaldo has taken 230 shots and a good number of them are free kicks. He has scored a couple of sensational goals from free kicks but the question is whether he is scoring as much as he should to justify him being the first choice free kick taker.

Based on memory from watching the games, I think Owen has a better scoring ratio from free kicks than Ronaldo.

Which brings up an interesting question.

Which is the better player? The one who insists on taking the shots and scores a higher number of goals but with a low success ratio or the one who chooses to take only kicks from certain ranges and angles and scores with a higher success ratio.

I think you need both kind of players in a team but when does the first one start suffocating the second?