NILAI: The national team can breathe a huge sigh of relief as the squad’s first naturalised player of the modern era, Gambian born Pahang forward Mohamadou Sumareh is well on his way to making a full recovery from the hamstring injury that has plagued him recently.
The good news was made known by Harimau Malaya coach, Tan Cheng Hoe, who is hoping that Sumareh will be in lethal form and help the national side beat Myanmar at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil on Saturday in their final AFF Cup Group A match in order to qualify for the semi-finals.
In fact, Cheng Hoe has high hopes that Sumareh will be able to perform well and punish their opponents after failing to score in their last three matches of the AFF Cup campaign.
"I see that Sumareh is making good progress in his recovery, so hopefully we will be able to see the real Sumareh in action against Myanmar this Saturday,” said Cheng Hoe when met after training at the Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) training field here in Bangi earlier today (Thursday).
"We will gauge the players’ performance to determine who are the best to make up the first-eleven, which includes the goalkeeper as well. I feel we have three of the country’s very best custodians in our ranks.
"All the players have a chance of playing, and over the next couple of days I will determine who are the best players to take to the field to execute our game plan against Myanmar.
Malaysia must win their final Group A match against Myanmar in order to qualify for the semi-finals of the competition.
Malaysia have amassed six points from three matches after notching wins over Cambodia (1-0) and Laos (3-1), and are a point behind the Group’s top two teams, group leaders Myanmar and second placed Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Sumareh explained that he has been watching videos of Myanmar’s matches to gauge Myanmar’s strengths and weaknesses as he has never played against them.
"I have never played against Myanmar and I know next to nothing about them. But I am confident that coach Cheng Hoe has also studied videos of their matches as well in order to come up with a solid game plan and strategy to take them on this Saturday.
"Based on what we’ve seen from the videos, we have an idea of what we need to do in order to get the better of them,” said Sumareh.