THE head coach of the Palestinian football team says Malaysia should drop most of its national players after being surprised at how easily they crumpled during a shock 6-0 thrashing in a World Cup qualifier last week.
“We wanted to win this game but we were surprised because it was a very big result. We did not expect they will give up after conceding three goals and did not try to get back into the game,” Abdel Nasser Barakat was quoted as saying.
To rub salt into the wound, Barakat’s risky gamble to do away with veterans and start with a number of young players for the game proved to be a winning formula.
The humiliating defeat was certainly a huge embarrassment for Malaysia, the FAM and national coach Dollah Salleh. This is the sixth time Malaysia had lost by half-a-dozen goals since 1968.
Dollah insisted that life must go on and promised reforms after the shameful night at National Stadium. With the miserable outing by the Under-23 team at the Singapore Sea Games, Malaysian football is now at a nadir after enjoying brief success between 2009 and 2011.
Consider this: Bhutan, which was once officially the world’s worst team, has now overtaken Malaysia in the Fifa rankings. The tiny Himalayan nation is ranked No. 159 in the latest world rankings by Fifa, while Malaysia stood at 162.
What has gone wrong with our international football standard? We seem to be doing well developing our own domestic league, the M-League, which is thriving and attracting a lot of foreign players.
Some players admitted they were not fit enough to play for 90 minutes in international matches. Is the hectic schedule in the M-League to be blamed?