Sports Minutes: Saifullah Akbar & Nazhiim Harman on their contrasting careers, quasi-famous fathers and OBFC

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Sports Minutes with Zia-ul Raushan on MoneyFM 89.3.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (0:06)
MoneyFM 89.3, it's time for Sports Minutes with me, Zia-ul Raushan. Two Singaporean footballers, both born in 1999, but both on very different trajectories. Saifullah Akbar has taken to life as a cheater very, very well, with his eye-catching performances for Haogang United, earning him a recall to the Singapore Men's National Team. Nazim Harman, on the other hand, has called time on his 8-year career as a Singapore Premier League footballer, having represented the likes of Young Lions, Geylang International and Haogang United.
But could a certain orange ballers FC, aka OBFC, be the cure to the football fomo? Well, we're about to find out, because joining me in the studio are Saifullah and Nazim. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Saifullah, we'll start with you.

**Saifullah Akbar** (0:52)
I'm good, Raushan. Thank you for having me.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (0:54)
Good to have you with us. Sai, Naz, how are you doing?

**Nazim Harman** (0:57)
I'm good, Raushan. Thank you for having me as well.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (0:59)
It is World Cup season, so let me kick off with a World Cup question. How much are you enjoying the World Cup, Naz?

**Nazim Harman** (1:06)
A lot, actually.
I'm supporting France, so they are banging in goals left, right, center. And also, not only France, particularly as well. I think Ronaldo is redeeming himself. So it's really nice to see the teams I'm supporting doing well.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (1:22)
So, Naz, his team, Ronaldo. Listeners, tell me if you agree, or you are team Messi. Saifullah, coming to you. World Cup fun?

**Saifullah Akbar** (1:29)
I mean, this might surprise you, but I don't really watch football. Not even the World Cup, maybe even the starting from the semifinals I watch, but I do catch up on the highlights.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (1:38)
You're one of a few footballers who seem to not want to watch football, and I understand that, right? If you do it for a living, then maybe a bit boring, or maybe, and to be fair, Saifullah, the listeners will notice you are a very, very busy man, which we'll unpack in a short while. So now let's talk football, right? Zia, I'll stick with you.
You are part of the national team squad that's departing to a training camp July 6th. But Centralised Training has already started. How's it going? How's it feels?

**Saifullah Akbar** (2:03)
It feels amazing because, like you just mentioned, I think I wasn't part of the national call-up for over four years, and then I got the call-up the last window, and I think I did well enough in training, even though I didn't get to play, but I think the training performances were good enough for Gavin to reward me with another call-up this time.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (2:21)
Thank you for stealing my question in terms of the second one, but you are a podcaster and you are allowed to do that, right? But I want to ask you this, centralized training, you talk about being part of the team, right? That road back to the national team has not been easy. You mentioned four years, right?
Why has it clicked? Why are you smiling again? Why are you enjoying football again? Because I know of your name for a long, long time, and I will say this, maybe you sort of lost your way, but suddenly you're smiling again back in the national team. What's gone right?

**Saifullah Akbar** (2:47)
I think one of the things that I learned was actually to trust myself a bit more and have confidence in myself a bit more. I think over the four years, I wanted to prove people too much and I neglected my own abilities. So when I took the step to not only go to Haogang, but even to Geylang on loan and then to Haogang here and there, I realised that I need to trust myself, trust my abilities, and that it will be rewarded, and I'm thankful that it is rewarded.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (3:17)
And I think I speak for the listeners when I say it's always good to see a footballer smiling again, especially a Singaporean footballer. Naz, now bringing you into the conversation, I think it would be wrong of me not to admit that you're not exactly smiling because you have to step away from the game that's given you so much. Why and why did you decide on this difficult decision?

**Nazim Harman** (3:40)
That's a good question actually.
For context, before I went down this professional road, I told myself that there will always be an end road for this professional football journey. So right from the get go from second year school when I started playing football, I told myself that I need to at least have a Plan B. So I went through, I managed to go to university, I got my degree, so just nice when I graduated in 2024 That's towards the end of my career already, the 2024-2025 season. It got to a point where I decided that I need to be better at a point of my life. And I think that moving away from football would definitely be a better trajectory for myself. So I made a decision to leave football. But if I'm being honest with you, I didn't live with any regrets. Because I feel that I achieved what I wanted to achieve, which is to play professionally. In terms of representing the nation, I've achieved that in the age group until I'm 23 So I'm pretty blessed with that in that aspect.