Firdaus Kassim

Firdaus Kassim (born 1987) is a former Singaporean footballer and professional football coach. Firdaus, who began coaching Thai Premier League outfit Chainat Football Club at the start of 2016 as first-team coach, is believed to be the first Singaporean to hold such a role in Thailand. A rising coach, he is set to assist national head coach V. Sundramoorthy on the upcoming 2016 AFF Suzuki Cup campaign along with assistant head coach Fandi Ahmad. He is expected to help out with coaching the Lions, and to double up as a match analyst providing analysis of the team's upcoming opponents.

Firdaus gave up on a Mathematics degree course at SIM University and a tuition-centre business to focus on his first love, football. Without much playing background or any connections in Singapore football, however, he has tons of reports and analyses of football games he made in his free time since age 14. As a youth coach, he had coached 12-year-old Faris Ramli, now a Singapore international footballer.

No one in particular has the "biggest coaching influences" on him. However, he admires coaches who do not have a playing background, like José Mourinho, André Villas-Boas, and Rafael Benítez. He can also relate to Brendan Rodgers, who spent 10 years in youth football, allowing him to experiment with new ideas without fear of losing his job, which he had also tried during his time as a youth coach.

Once a promising Prime League player, Firdaus' playing career was cut short because of injury after being on the receiving end of a bad tackle during training. Determined to stay involved in the sport, he turned his attention to coaching. He worked his way up through the local coaching system in the Junior Centres of Excellence (JCOE) and the National Football Academy (NFA) — during which he went on to earn himself an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) 'B' licence — before eventually being appointed the head coach of Hougang United's Under-18 team in 2015. He went on to complete his AFC 'A' coaching course during the year, making him the youngest coach in Southeast-Asia to hold the qualification.

In 2016, he signed a one-year contract with Chainat F.C. as first-team coach and performance analyst, where he was also given an important role in the club's player recruitment.