KUALA LUMPUR: National youth coach Ong Kim Swee is living up to his reputation of being the 'Jose Mourinho of Southeast Asian football' as his efficient tactics helped Malaysia reach the 2017 Sea Games semi-finals.
Kim Swee now wants to turn Malaysia from being merely efficient to 'super-efficient' as the former international believes his side has the pedigree to become the Sea Games champions for the first time since 2011.
Like Mourinho, the Malaysian coach believes football is about winning matches whether through relentless domination or through unimpressive methods, as long the team collect three points or a title.
Malaysia effortlessly topped Group A by winning all their four matches, scoring 10 goals and conceding four.
The team played brilliantly in the wins over Singapore (2-1) and Myanmar (3-1), but looked slightly off colour in victories over Brunei (2-1) and Laos (3-1).
But the unimpressive manner of the victories in some matches does not worry Kim Swee as he believes he has finally found his best line-up for the semi-finals after rotating all 20 players in the group stage.
Malaysia’s opponents in the semi-final on Saturday was decided late yesterday after the completion of Group B matches.
“We will have our best players available for the semi-finals as we have no suspensions and major injuries. Only S. Kumaahran is recovering from a slight knock and we will be assessing his condition,” said Kim Swee.
“We will be drilling on tactics ahead of the semi-finals. We need a good strategy in order to make the final.
“I am confident the players will be mentally and tactically ready for Saturday’s challenge.
“We did not play pretty football in the win over Laos (on Wednesday), but it is okay…we didn’t want to kill ourselves and did just enough to win.”
Kim Swee will have a pleasant headache when choosing his attacking players under the 3-4-3 formation for the semi-finals.
“Only forwards Syafiq Ahmad, Kumaahran and Akhyar Rashid have not scored, but they have been contributing significantly.
“Forwards N. Thanabalan, Safawi Rasid, Jafri Firdaus Chew have scored seven goals between them. I need to test these six players in training before I decide on my attacking players,” Kim Swee added.
Captain Adib Zainuddin, who scored once in the 3-1 win over Laos, said the impressive run in the group stage will give his team the added motivation for the semi-finals.
“Everyone has quality and that is why we can inter-change easily to suit our strategy in each match.
“We are on the right track and hopefully, we can perform better in the semi-finals. But we need to tighten defensively as we conceded a goal each in every group match.
“It is not a good record as most goals conceded were from our own mistakes,” said Adib.