KUALA LUMPUR: Newly appointed national Under-19 coach Bojan Hodak has revealed a sad truth about the current state of players in this age category.
The Croat was shocked that only three of the 40 trainees understood some of his basic tactical training drills which started two weeks ago.
“I did some basic tactical things with the players and when I asked how many of them did these drills at their clubs, only three put up their hands. Others said they never done them before,” Hodak told Timesport yesterday.
“I am not sure how to describe this… a little bit disappointed or shocking, I don’t know. It is very good that we are now focusing on the Under-19 group as they need to learn a lot.”
Hodak, who signed a two-year contract, took up the challenge to handle the youth team after a meeting with FAM president Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim in July.
“Tunku Ismail shared his ideas and also provided details of his vision for a long term programme. I immediately accepted the challenge.
“He wants me to prepare the team for the future. Currently, most players in the senior team are lacking some tactical and technical aspects.
“I am here to prepare the young players the skills necessary to make it big at senior level,” he said.
Many have questioned whether Hodak is the right person for the job as he has never coached youth teams before.
“I worked with very young players when I was with UPB-MyTeam, where I took the team from the Premier League to the Super League a decade ago,” he said.
“Then, the average age of MyTeam players were 20 years old. And over the years, 12 of them made it to the national senior squad. I have worked a lot with young players and have enough experience.”
The 46-year-old, who has an UEFA Pro licence, was successful with Kelantan and Darul Ta’zim as a senior team coach.
He helped Kelantan to the Super League, FA Cup and Malaysia Cup titles in 2012 and also the FA Cup the following season.
With Darul Ta’zim, he guided them to the 2014 Super League crown before he was replaced by Argentine Mario Gomez in May, 2015.
Last season, he joined Penang for six months as their chief executive officer, but his contract was not renewed despite the team avoiding relegation.
As for the national Under-19 team, Hodak is assisted by Nenad Bacina and Hairuddin Omar. His first task will be the AFF Under-18 Championship in Yangon, where Malaysia will start their Group A campaign on Monday against Laos. Other teams in the group are Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia.