Ollerenshaw (left) with Sabah FC CEO Khairul Firdaus.
KOTA KINABALU: Scott Ollerenshaw has expressed his excitement at making a return to the state football scene.
Ollerenshaw, arguably the most successful foreign player to have donned the state jersey, was recently appointed as Technical Director of Sabah Football Club (Sabah FC) and he hoped that his presence could help the squad and Sabah football to greater heights.
“In the last 15 years, I’ve been involved in Malaysian football with the mixed heritage players like Brendan Gan, Corbin Ong and Matthew Davies.
“So, when I was asked to come back, for me the first thing was… excited… because my heart is still here and I’ve lived in Sabah all these years.
“I’ve watched Sabah or the Sabah team under performed for a lot of years and I’m excited now because I can see great things happening,” he said during an interview session with Sabah FC.
Ollerenshaw went on to say that among his main vision with the team was to improve the quality of coaches in the state, assisting the potential young coaches to reach the top level.
He said it was one of the roles that he would be carrying out as technical director for Sabah FC.
“In term of my role, we’ll start from the top going down. The coaches…we have some very promising young Sabahan coaches here.
“We have Burhan (Ajui), Johnny Dominicus, Jelius Ating who all were my former teammates and that they are still involved… we’ll get them educated and get the actual Fifa Pro (license) so that they can coach at the highest level here in term of Malaysian Super League teams.
“So, that’s number one…very important. And then the other coaches, the young coaches that have B license, they need to go to the A License and those with C license we need them to get to B License.
“We need to get as many of our young Sabahan coaches to educate them and to be fully licensed,” he said.
Ollerenshaw added, “Number two is the state team. Coach Kurniawan (Dwi Yulianto) is the boss…he is in charge.
“My role in term of foreigners (foreign players), a bit of a mentoring role.”
Meanwhile, Ollerenshaw believed that Sabah must find some stability and to make progress before they should start targetting for titles.
He said going out and giving huge statement on winning title will only bring unneccessary pressure on the team.
“I don’t believe you should come out before the season and say we gonna come in this position or that position because it puts undue pressure on the players, the coach and everyone within the club.
“What I believe is, for this year it is about stabilising and Sabah try to finish as high as they can. So which ever position the team achieve this year, they have to be better in 2022 and even better in 2023…it is about making progress.
“But to come out and make big statement and say we are gonna win this or that, I don’t think that helps anyone.
“If we can win something, it’s fantastic but let’s make progress every year,” he said.
Ollerenshaw is best remembered for his lethal finishing during his prime, winning consecutive two Golden Boot awards.
The striker also played a role in helping Sabah to win the FA Cup title in 1995 and also the Premier League (now Super League) the following year.
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