Gavin Lee (football coach)

Last updated
Gavin Lee
Personal information
Date of birth 8 Sep 1990
Place of birth Singapore
Managerial career
YearsTeam
2019- Tampines Rovers FC
2024- Singapore (assistant)

Gavin Lee (born in Singapore) is a Singaporean football coach who is the current head coach of Tampines Rovers in Singapore and assistant coach of Singapore. [1]

Contents

Career

Lee joined the JSSL Singapore when he was 18 as a "cone guy" before becoming the general manager in 2016. [2] Gavin is also the youngest ever head coach in the history of the Singapore Premier League. Typically, football coaches in Singapore usually embark on their coaching career only in their late thirties, after ending their playing careers. As a young football coach, Gavin admitted that a consequence of his daily routines is that he “does not have as many friends as others”.

Since he was 17, Gavin has been a football coach. He worked his way up from the grassroots, coaching children as young as five at JSSL.

As a teenager, he was skillful enough as a footballer to make it into the now-defunct National Football Academy. But after seeing the talent of his batch mates, such as Gabriel Quak, Hariss Harun and Izwan Mahbud, Gavin knew he would not be able to keep up. “It was also at that point that I realised I couldn’t cope academically, so I decided to choose a different path,” Gavin shared. He turned to coaching because his father had been a coach since he was young. Apart from doing his coaching badges from the basic grassroots courses to the introductory courses and the more elite AFC (Asian Football Confederation) ‘A’ diploma licence, Gavin also had to get his degree.

Playing career

When he was much younger, Gavin Lee would often walk from his block at Tampines Central, pass through Tampines interchange, and make his way to Tampines Stadium for football training. He played for the Tampines under-8s, as well as the under-10s, teams that his father coached at the time.

He also played for the national under-14 team. [2]

Coaching career

Warriors FC

Lee was Warriors FC's assistant coach in their title winning season in 2014. Lee left the club in 2015. [2]

In 2018, he joined Tampines Rovers as an assistant coach. [2] The following year, in 2019, he became their head coach despite lacking the required Asian Football Confederation 'A' License to become the head coach. [3] [2]

Lee was appointed as head coach based on his past performance as Warriors FC's assistant coach and impressed Tampines Rovers' staff and players with his knowledge. [2]

Tampines Rovers

.In 2019, almost two decades later, 28-year-old Lee is helming the Tampines Rovers' senior team for the 2019 Singapore Premier League season.

He would then led the club to second place back to back placing in the Singapore Premier League and won the Singapore Cup in his first season in charge. [1]

During the 2021 season, he led the team to their first ever AFC Champions League debut in Tashkent, Uzbekistan which they are drawn in Group H with 2020 K League 1 champions and 2020 Korean FA Cup winners, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, 2020 J1 League runners-up, Gamba Osaka and Thailand Chiangrai United.

On 16 June 2021, Gavin has extended his contract until 2024.

Singapore

On 7 March 2024, Lee was invited to be part of the backroom staff of the Singapore national football team by the newly appointed head coach Tsutomu Ogura for the March 2024 international window. [4] His first match as part of the national team backroom staff is against the China national football team at Singapore Sports Hub for the 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, which finished 2-2.

Honours

Manager

Education

Lee was a former student of Victoria School and Victoria Junior College. [5] He later studied in Nanyang Technological University and had a degree in Sports Science and Management. [2]

When Gavin Lee was in university, he was often labelled as an “old man”. That was because instead of heading to suppers and parties with his peers, Gavin regularly turned down invitations because he needed to rest and wake up early for work the following day. He was working as a coach at private football academy JSSL then.

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References

  1. 1 2 "Tampines Rovers has kept faith in head coach Gavin Lee" . Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Former NTU student breaks barriers in local football league". Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "Tampines first-team coach Lee earns respect despite being younger than some players". Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Tsutomu Ogura strengthens backroom staff with key coach appointments" . Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  5. ↑ "Meet Gavin Lee, Singapore's Brightest Coaching Prospect – Part 1: The Journey to Topflight Football".
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