M’sian football standard still dismal after 30 years

KUALA LUMPUR: After 30 years, Malaysian football standard has not changed and in fact, has slipped further down the FIFA world rankings and with no clear signs that the standard will improve.

Former national footballer Khalid Ali, who played for the country for nine years from the mid-1970s to the 80s, said Malaysia still lacked football talents of high international standard due to the lack of amateur and semi-professional leagues in the country.

He said through football programmes at the grassroots level such as the amateur league and semi-professional league, more football talents could be unearthed and selected for the national team.

“Malaysia must expand its search for new talents for the future of its football. There has been no positive change seen from our current professional league.

“I feel we are still not ready for a professional league because if we look at the present situation, there are still players with no permanent job and there are also those not paid their salary,” he noted, when contacted by Bernama here yesterday.

Khalid said in their sixth match in Group A of the World Cup 2018 Qualifying Round/Asia Cup 2019, in Amman, Jordan Thursday night, Harimau Malaya lost 06 to Palestine, and defeat was expected due to their lacklustre performance.

However, Khalid did not expect Malaysia to concede so many goals.

“Of course, Malaysian football fans and I expected that we would lose (to Palestine) but not badly. As a football fan and former footballer, I admit that I was disappointed.

“But in terms of quality of play last (Thursday) night, the national squad were a bit better when they played against Palestine in the first leg at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil (on June 16),” he said.

Khalid said Harimau Malaya interim chief coach, Datuk Ong Kim Swee had injected some changes and improvement in the national squad’s style of play but the effort did not bear fruit.

The country’s well-known sports commentator, Zainal Abidin Rawop said Harimau Malaya’s thrashing by Palestine Thursday night was due to their attitude from their loss in the previous match in Bukit Jalil, by the same margin.

He said in the first 30 minutes of last night’s match, Malaysia played with a high level of discipline but then lost focus, enabling Palestine to score.

“Palestine had an easy first goal. Our defence was weak, they lost leadership there. After the first goal, it was even easier for Palestine to break our defence and find the net,” he said.

On the upcoming match against United Arab Emirates at Shah Alam Stadiun on November 17, Zainal Abidin said he was worried if Harimau Malaya could not recover in time from their defeat in Jordan, which could affect their play.

Personally, he felt that the UAE team would be quick and put up a better display that the Saudi Arabian team.

After UAE’s visit, Malaysia will play against Saudi Arabia away in the last match of Group A in March, next year.

With regard to Malaysia’s standing in the FIFA rankings, Malaysia were at No. 171 in October, this year, two steps down from No. 169 in September.

Malaysia were ranked 79th in the world in 1993, but with the current standing, it is a drop of 92 places in 22 years. This makes Malaysia worse than the likes of Timor Leste (170th), New Caledonia (169th) and Mauritius (168th) in the rankings involving 209 countries. – Bernama