Malaysian Soccer
Malaysian Soccer

Malaysia's world rankings has been slipping steadily since the days of Mokhtar Dahari, V. Arumugam, Soh Chin Aun, Santokh Singh and company. We can definitely learn a lot from the top teams in Asia like South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Asian Games 1994

Malaysia 4-3 Hong Kong
Malaysia 0-5 Uzbekistan
Malaysia 1-2 Saudi Arabia (NOT their World Cup squad, if it was we would be in BIG trouble)
Malaysia 1-1 Thailand
News report: "letdown was mental and defence weaknesses"

Friendly: Selangor Selection 1-4 Manchester United; Ollerenshaw scored only goal. In United's very next match, they lost 1-3 at Aston Villa - just shows how huge the gap is...

SEA Games 95

0-2 Vietnam; Le Roy's excuse: they played 19 games in Germany & Switzerland
0-0 Thailand;
0-3 Indonesia; Le Roy's excuse: they trained for 6 months
9-0 Laos; The only funny part was when our 10th goal scored by Affendi Julaihi was disallowed when the goalpost collapsed.
Final: Thailand 4-0 Vietnam; quite a high standard game with fast, attacking & smooth moves.
But what hurt most was listening to what Karl-Heinz Weigang (Vietnam coach & used to coach Malaysia in the early 80's) had to say: Malaysians don't know how to play soccer anymore: passing is terrible, ball control is pitiful etc etc

Friendly 22/1/96

0-4 Slovakia; leaky defence, unfit

Asia Cup qualifier 1996

0-0 Indonesia; the players were slow, weak and lost concentration easily. They can't handle the ball well and upfront players couldn't deliver pinpoint passes and crosses. Indonesia were clearly the better team. We didn't even have one decent shot at goal.
5-2 India; but since Indonesia had thrashed India 7-1, we're out! We were leading 5-1 until the shock 2nd Indian goal. "Tale of missed chances"

Tiger Cup 1996

At last we see a determined Malaysian side. Congrats Wan Jamak. We lost 0-1 to Thailand in the final, but on the way, we saw off Indonesia 3-1 and beat Brunei 6-0.

Dunhill Cup 1997

Still a world's difference from the best in the world, but the fact that the best crowd since Merdeka Cup 1993 final turned up is an indication of our growing faith in the team.
Beat Finland 2-1, but sometimes we looked amateurish against a side battling the heat as well. Should have finished off Singapore rather than settling for that 0-0 result. How will we fare against China, who themselves are no match for the best?

How big is the gap between best of the world & best of anywhere else?

4 Nations Tourney 95: Brazil 3-0 Japan
Friendlies:
Japan 1-5 Brazil
South Korea 0-1 Brazil
25/4/96: South Africa (African champs) 2-3 Brazil; led 2-0 at halftime against the surprisingly disorganised world champs; Bebeto snatched the winner 4 minutes from time.

World Cup 1994 results

Asia Cup champions

Iran were champs in 1968, 1972, 1976
Kuwait were tops in 1980
Saudi Arabia were peerless in 1984 and 1988; when they had Majed "Desert Pele" Abdullah and Saeed Owairan, who produced the best individual goal in USA'94
Japan was the new blood in 1992

World Cup 1998
After watching how the best of Asia returned home winless, except for Iran who beat USA 2-1 (but the USA isn't exactly an elite team) we should be aware of how much we are lagging behind the top powers of world soccer. Got your work cut out there, coach! An acquaintance commented: "Look at Cameroon, they have our old coach training them (Claude Le Roy), and they managed to qualify for the Finals. What about us? It's not a matter of which coach you bring in. Kalau sudah bebal, memang bebal. Tidak boleh diajar lagi." In short, he's implying that all Malaysians simply do not have any talent for playing soccer (kaki bangku). Anyone have comment on this? Looking at it another way, soccer is Malaysia's no.1 sport. So why aren't we showing significant results, while teams like South Korea, Japan or even Thailand have overtaken us?

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