South African Coach Lee Lai Talks About Football And Life At Kaya

Meet Lee Lai, one of the best youth coaches in all of the Philippines, who has seen experience in top tier clubs such as Liverpool and Sporting Lisbon.

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Featuring on my program D-QASM, Coach Lee J Lai talked about his coaching career and life at Kaya Football Academy in Manila, Philippines.

Lee is a football coach from South Africa who is currently working as the Kaya FC Academy U11 head coach.

He started coaching at the age of 22 as an assistant coach for Sun United, which is a second division club in South Africa.

Here is a quick question-and-answer I did with him on my show.

Q: When did you start taking football coaching as a serious career option?

A:At Sun United. The club taught me a lot about football and I fell in love with the game.

After being an assistant coach at Sun United for a period of time, things became easy, but I wanted more challenges in my new found love of football coaching–especially at a professional club level.

With the desire to learn more and the new ambition to coach in the youth system, I took a risk by applying at Bloemfontein Celtic in South Africa. Luckily I was accepted.

At Bloemfontein Celtic, I coached the u14 and u16 youth team. In this club, I discovered my strong and weak points of being a coach. My leadership skills were nonexistent, but my hunger to learn took me to one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Liverpool International football Academy implemented their football program in South Africa, and I was lucky to be selected as one of the coaching staff. At Liverpool, I truly gained knowledge and understanding of different types of age groups in youth development and the correct training methods that fit them.

After my great experience and knowledge at Liverpool, I set my goals to coach at Sporting Lisbon South Africa– the same club Cristiano Ronaldo [played on] when he was at youth level. Here I learned the most important lesson [of] all. “Winning games doesn’t mean you are a great coach at the youth level.” Sometimes as a youth coach, we are so focusing on winning games that we forget our role as a coach: “Planting good football habits in children and nurture them.”

Coaching at all levels comes with challenges. As a youth coach, you must know what are good football habits, you must have excellent football knowledge and the ability to pass it on to young players.

After one year coaching and being mentored by great coaches at Sporting Lisbon, I knew it was time for a new challenge as a young coach. Hence I moved to the Philippines.

Before coming to the Philippines, I read a lot online about football here. Through my search, I got to know that football is not a new sport here, but the development process is still young.

Q: What was your first club in the Philippines?

A: Kaya has been my only club in the Philippines. I have been with Kaya youth academy for close to two years now. To be honest, I love every moment being a Kaya coach.

I knew that Kaya has one of the greatest and strongest youth programs in the Philippines, and I wanted to be part of it.

In the Philippines, I was not only looking for a challenge but a club where I can grow into the coach I want to be. I can say “I am where I want to belong right now in my life.”

Being the Head coach for the Kaya U11 in this 2017 season brought some great challenges. At Kaya, every kid needs time on the ball. The more players have touched the ball the better they can become.

That is why the U11 group was divided into two leagues–YFL and NCR FA–to give chance to all the players to play competitive football.

My Kaya NCRFA U11 team did amazingly well. The team was made up of players that never played in youth leagues. But they surpassed expectations by finishing 3rd place in NCR FA.

The Kaya YFL U11 team was one of the most interesting squad I have ever had. We had a great group stages position which entitled us to qualify for knockout stages and the cup.

Though we finished 1st Runner in the YFL U11 league, we had great performances–especially our semi finals, a match that I will always look back and say,” It was one of the best matches I have encountered in my football career as a coach. ”

Q: You said that in Sporting, you learned that winning trophy does not necessarily make you are a good coach at the youth level, how is it at Kaya?

A: I don’t live my life to how many games I have won, but on how many players I have developed to become great players or has the potential to play 1st team football.

I will always remember the most important principle I learned in football from coach Ray Curtis at Liverpool. “It does not matter how many trophies you have in your case, what really matters is how many players you have developed to play for a great clubs like Liverpool or any major clubs.”

If this principle from coach Ray is adopted in major clubs here in the Philippines, there will be a significant improvement on youth development in the Philippines and how young players play football.