National coach wants to see Bruneians play in Europe
National football coach Kwon Oh-son has recently completed the second stage of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) P license coach Professional Diploma in the United Kingdom (UK).
"I have just completed and passed the second stage course in London recently. I was there for two weeks, from August 26 to September 9 and it was a fantastic experience for me," said coach Kwon in an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday.
The national football coach was given the chance to sit for the most advanced coaching course in Asia after receiving an invitation from the Korean Football Association (KFA) last year.
The KFA became the first football association in Asia to introduce the four-module course which is conducted exclusively by AFC on a biennial basis for coaches who have an AFC 'A' licence.
The course comprises three sessions a year and includes programmes like fitness conditioning, game and strategy analysis, professional club management, sport medicine, sport psychology, communication and club visits.
"I went to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea football institutions and visited a number of football stadiums, including the famous Wembley Stadium, during my two weeks stay there. The football culture in UK is very high and the footballers are highly respected," he said.
Kwon completed the first stage of the course last year in November at Paju National Football Centre (NFC), South Korea.
The 55-year-old is the first coach in Brunei to take the AFC Professional Diploma course.
At present, there are only 70 coaches in South Korea, Japan and China with the AFC P License there is none currently in Southeast Asia.
Kwon's progress can only be beneficial to the growth of football in Brunei.
"Philosophy is very important for coaches in English football and they must have their own philosophy to be successful,
"Now that I am here in Brunei, my philosophy is to get the players to have a dream and ambition to excel in football. It is more into a continuous development but at the same time it is also important to keep on winning," continued Kwon.
"I would like to see Bruneians playing in not only the Southeast Asia and Asia level, but also to play in Europe maybe in three, five or 10 years time," added Kwon who guided the national under-21 team to a 2-0 victory over Indonesia in the Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy (HBT) final last year.
He also exceeded all expectations when he was in charge of the national senior team at last year's Asean Football Federation (AFF) Suzuki Cup Qualifiers in Yangon, where their two win-two loss record prevented them from qualifying for the tournament-proper.
The South Korean will be leading the national Under-23 team to the 27th edition of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Myanmar in December and have been preparing for tournament since March.
