SINGAPORE -- The road to the 2027 AFC Asian Cup for Singapore begins in earnest now.
Especially after it was confirmed that the man who got them there will be the very same one leading them when Asia's premier international tournament comes around in 13 months' time.
After becoming the first coach to help Singapore qualify for the Asian Cup for the first time on merit, albeit in a caretaker capacity, Gavin Lee was confirmed in the job on a permanent basis in a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Lee's eventual appointment might have come as a surprise considering that in the early stages of the process to find a fulltime successor to Tsutomu Ogura, who stepped down from the job back in June owing to personal reasons, his name was barely mentioned as the Football Association of Singapore declared their intent on making a statement signing.
Nonetheless, the work the 35-year-old did as interim coach -- which culminated in qualification for the Asian Cup with a game to spare -- soon made him impossible to ignore.
Football is, however, fickle. Opinions and impressions can change on the back of a single result and there is plenty still to play out before Lee and his Lions board their flight to Saudi Arabia two Januarys from now.
There is even another major tournament before that -- in the form of the next ASEAN Championship, officially known as the ASEAN Hyundai Cup 2026 -- which supporters usually demand success in coming up against fierce regional rivals.
Still, FAS president Forrest Li has moved quickly to put his backing behind Lee, insisting that the sole objective is now the Asian Cup.
"We've already started working on the plan," Li replied, when asked by ESPN about the long-term assurances FAS has given Lee.
"Everything now will be trying to optimise for January, February 2027 -- the Asian Cup.
"Whatever happens in between, there will be no knee-jerk reactions. Everything will be to optimise for that tournament because that is the biggest stage for Asian football."
"We really cherish the opportunity."
Li also drew chuckles from those gathered when he revealed that he had asked for Lee's wish list and that the initial answer to anything would be 'yes'.
Sharing some specific initiatives, the FAS chief stated that they would target stronger opposition in warm-up friendlies next year, and also raised the possibility of an overseas-based physiotherapist to focus solely on working with the significant Lions contingent currently plying their trade in Thai League 1.
Li was also asked at which point did he start shifting his focus from a glamour appointment to one of Singapore's very own, where he revealed there had been an element of emotion involved in the selection.
"At the end of the day, this decision for me is more 'heart' than 'head'," he added. "Gavin won my heart, the [selection] committee's hearts, the players' hearts, and a lot of fans' hearts.
"When I think back on my life, most of the best decisions have been 'heart' decisions, and that gives me comfort.
"Sometimes it's easier to do a checklist and score [the candidates], and whoever [choose] whoever gets the [best] score. The process might sound perfect. There's nothing to be criticized but it may not lead to the best decision.
"Sometimes you need to trust your intuition, and I feel a strong sense of that from Gavin."
Sitting alongside Li was a man who not only played a part in picking the new Lions coach for his latest role, but also the one who played a huge role in laying the early foundations years ago: FAS vice president and former BG Tampines Rovers chairman Desmond Ong, who handed Lee his first head coach job in the Singapore Premier League at just the age of 29.
Ong also gave his insight into how Lee ultimately got the nod as the only local option among a sea of overseas candidates, suggesting that his 'audition' over the past few months had been impossible to ignore.
"We spoke to about 20 of them [foreign applicants]. In some strange way, seeing all those coaches validated what we saw Gavin doing before our very eyes," Ong explained. "None of them were moving the needle.
"It became more and more apparent that the boy we had in our own backyard -- I apologise, I must call him a man -- was better, if you can actually quantify these things.
"We didn't set out to get a local - this much is true [but] in terms of being able to relate to the players [and] the conditions, who better than a local? The fact that he's a local is a bonus.
"I think one big set of stakeholders is the players. And, if you spoke to the players, it became increasingly evident that they wanted Gavin to remain as coach. I think their voices should be the loudest because, in professional sport, if the players want to play for the coach, that is really half the battle won.
"The last [consideration] was that he didn't have the experience but he was putting up a very good audition. He was winning games.
"If he was passing the audition with flying colours but [the issue was that] he didn't have the experience, then it begs the question: 'If we don't give him the experience, who's going to?'"