Five candidates have been shortlisted for Singapore's vacant technical director position and an appointment will be made by March.
That was the announcement that came from the executive committee meeting of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) on Monday night.
The four-time ASEAN champions have had a dismal year as they bowed out of the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup in the group stages after losing 3-1 at home to archrivals Malaysia on Nov. 29.
Following their exit from the tournament, the focus has been on preparing Singapore's U-23s for their assault at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in June.
The FAS have also been channeling their energies into bringing in an experienced technical director to push through their youth development plans.
According to FAS President Zainudin Nordin, a shortlist of five was drawn up from 60 applicants. He said that the final candidates are of high quality.
"We spent the past few months looking for the best available person who will be a good fit with the local football environment," Mr Nordin said.
"I am very pleased with the calibre and quality of the candidates who have applied for the position.
"We have met with the shortlisted candidates who have shown us their plans for Singapore youth development that are aligned with our goals of producing competitive and winning teams at all age-group levels for key competitions such as Asian Cup, Asian Games, FIFA Asian World Cup Qualifiers, Pre-Olympic Qualifiers, AFF Suzuki Cup, SEA Games and AFC/AFF age-group competitions."
The executive committee also reviewed the performance of the national team at the recently concluded Suzuki Cup.
They have strongly backed head coach Bernd Stange to continue in his role with the Lions, despite heavy criticism of Singapore's performance that produced just one victory from three matches.
Stange, who took over in 2013, failed to take the defending champions into the knockout stages. But he insisted that he is ready to lead Singapore in their next major assignment -- the Asian World Cup qualifiers for Russia 2018.
"I have taken the feedback from the management and the team seriously and will adopt key suggestions as we prepare for three key assignments in the next six months: the National Team's FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, the Under-23 team's SEA Games competition and the Under-22's participation in the AFC U-22 qualifiers," Stange said.
"I will learn from, and rectify, the mistakes we had made and aim to make our team stronger and better. I am fully focused on the next assignment, and I would like to thank the FAS, its management and staff, our teams and players, and our stakeholders including the fans and the media for their support towards me and the team."
Former Lions' captain Aide Iskandar will coach the 2015 SEA Games team while S.League-winning manager Richard Bok will be in charge of qualifying matches for the 2016 Rio Olympics.