KUALA LUMPUR: Former national coach, Datuk Mohamad Bakar has described the national Under-23 team as being almost on par with a few of Asia’s footballing giants.
Mohamad Bakar said as such after seeing the big improvement in performance of Ong Kim Swee’s squad, even though they bowed out of the AFC Under-23 Championship at the quarter-final stage after narrowly losing 2-1 to South Korea earlier today.
In fact, he believes that Ong Kim Swee’s boys recent performances will make future opposing teams worry and sweat as they can no longer be labelled as whipping boys in tournaments to come after this.
“We need to keep this young team together and take very good care of all the players. We can all see for ourselves such positive improvements until traditionally stronger teams such as South Korea had to toil hard and were made to sweat to get past them.
“It’s only at the beginning of the championship where our boys made mistakes, but what’s noticeably evident was the players fighting spirit and their determination to get level whenever they fell behind, regardless of the scoreline. In fact even in the match against the South Koreans, when the opposition scored their second goal, our boys were still fighting and searching for an equaliser right up till the final whistle.
“Such a spirited performance is what we all want to see. South Korea only had a slight advantage in terms of individual skills, especially in attack as they managed to trouble our defense,” he said.
Even though they bowed out at the quarter-final stage, their achievement in overcoming Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the final group C match is something to be very proud of.
The noteworthy performances of a few key players throughout the championship can be seen as a breath of fresh air for the future of Malaysian football.
The national senior team’s coach, Tan Cheng Hoe has admitted that he is more than impressed with a few of Kim Swee’s players and is ready to call these players up to the senior squad.
Mohamad Bakar, who was also the assistant coach for the legendary 1980 Moscow Olympics squad is of the opinion that seven to eight of the Under-23 players can strengthen the national senior team.
“We have to further develop and nurture these players and many among them are more than ready to play for the senior squad. So why do we need to select and depend on the same, old usual players anymore?
“Players like Safawi Rasid, Syazwan Andik Ishak, Matthew Davies, Akhyar Rashid and goalkeeper, Haziq Nadzli are among those who deserve to be absorbed into the senior squad,” stressed Mohamad Bakar.