That is father-to-son succession, people see in young players the image of their father right at the world football festival playground. Examples include Justin Kluivert and his father Patrick Kluivert of the Dutch national team, Lilian Thuram and his son Marcus Thuram of the French national team, or the muscular guy Erling Haaland - son of Alf-Inge Haaland, former Norwegian international who participated in the 1994 World Cup...
There is no complete statistic, but it seems that the phenomenon of "father-to-child succession" in football is denser than other sports. Partly due to physical genes, but more importantly, boys, sons of football legends, are exposed to the football field environment early, nurtured with love from a young age and also easily trained from an early age with the influence of their fathers.
Yesterday, at the press conference before the match between Vietnam and Singapore, the story of "father and son and football" was mentioned with the appearance of Ilhan Fandi - the son of Singapore football legend Fandi Ahmad.
The current generation probably doesn't know, Fandi Ahmad - to this day is still a symbol of Singaporean football. He himself is also the son of Ahmad Wartam, one of the typical goalkeepers of the Lion City. Fandi became the first Singaporean player to play professionally in Europe when joining Groningen of the Netherlands. After the European journey, he continued to build his name in Malaysia before becoming the biggest symbol of the Singaporean national team for nearly 2 decades.
Now it's Fandi's children's turn, he has 3 sons and all of them are or are Singaporean players. Ilhan once admitted that he wants to write his own story, not become a copy of his legendary father. He considers the pressure from the Fandi family as motivation for progress and always puts collective interests above personal achievements.
At ASEAN Cup 2026, Ilhan had a super product in injury time to help Singapore defeat Cambodia in the opening match, then he continued to score against Timor Leste to bring the 2nd consecutive victory for his team.
Yesterday, at the press conference, this young man said briefly when asked about his team's victory: "I think tomorrow's goal is a common goal. Whether it's me or my teammates scoring goals is a good thing. I hope the first goal is to focus on contributing and helping the team achieve good results.
A precious humility from Fandi Ahmad's son, but also raises the necessary caution. Because more than 20 years ago, in the 1998 Tiger Cup final (now ASEAN Cup), Singapore was considered weaker, but they raised the Cup right at Hang Day after a goal from... the back of defender Sasir Kuma.
So be wary of Ilhan in today's match.
