KUALA LUMPUR: Former M-League coach Datuk Zainal Abidin Hassan has stressed that strengthening the M-League will help produce more quality players for the national team.
He said upgrading the M-League should be made a priority as Malaysia sets tougher targets moving forward such as featuring consistently at the AFC Asian Cup as well as qualifying for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Malaysia qualified on merit for the 2023 Asian Cup in Doha for the first time in 43-years. The squad lost to Jordan (4-0), Bahrain (1-0) and drew with South Korea (3-3) in the tournament recently.
"I feel the squad gained valuable experience at the Asian Cup which will help them improve for upcoming competitions. The national team, however, is only as strong as its domestic league," said Zainal today.
"I hope we can strengthen the M-League because we know there are weaknesses in terms of team management and plenty of problems (with salary arrears). Measures have to be taken to overcome this.
"Another area we have to look at are the back-ups. We don't have talents who can replace the existing senior team players because we're too dependent on naturalised players and we worry there might be no (quality naturalised players) to replace them.
"Development is important and it must start now."
The national squad's ranking is expected to drop from World No. 130 to No. 132 as they are projected to lose 12.28 points following their results at the Asian Cup.
Zainal urged fans not to be too harsh on the squad or national coach Kim Pan Gon as they are relatively new to the Asian Cup competition.
"As a squad, we're doing well but we can't deny that there are slight measures to be taken to further improve since we're still new at the Asian Cup. Jordan have played five times and now they are in the final," added Zainal.
"What we are missing is that 'world-class' player quality just like how Jordan has Mousa Al Tamari, Yazan Al Naimat and Yazan Al Arab. We need to find these type of gems or educate players in this so that Harimau Malaya has a 'weapon'.
"But we have improved drastically in defending, in the past we could only withhold for 60-70 minutes and now we're getting better. It's just that we need to have better physical attributes just like Jordan."
Malaysia is ranked no. 23 in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rankings and fourth in Southeast Asia.
Occupying the top five spots in Asia are Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia and Qatar.
Thailand is projected to climb 12 spots to world no. 101. The War Elephants qualified for the round-of-16 in Doha where they lost 2-1 to Uzbekistan.
Similarly, Indonesia is also projected to climb 12 spots to world no. 144 as they too had progressed to the knockout stages where they lost 4-0 to 2015 champions Australia.
After their disappointing Asian Cup campaign which saw them failing to secure a single point, Vietnam is expected to drop 12 spots to world No. 106, their worst ranking in seven years. The last time they were ranked outside the top-100 was back in 2017 (112).