THE head coach of the Palestinian football team says Malaysia should drop most of its national players after being surprised at how easily they crumpled during a shock 6-0 thrashing in a World Cup qualifier last week.
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SPORTS: Malaysia lost 6-0 to Palestine in their second group match of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers on June 16 at home at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium.
This defeat, combined with their 1-1 home draw with minnows Timor Leste one week earlier, means that the Malayan Tigers’ chances of making it to the next qualification stage are effectively over.
This news that was even more disappointing to learn, as on the same night, regional rivals Singapore admirably held Japan 0-0, whereas the Philippines beat Bahrain 2-1 in their own qualifying matches.
Malaysia’s failure to perform at the international stage is nothing new.
After all, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) constantly limits their target to just the regional SEA Games and AFF Cup, without daring to set a tougher target at the continental stage.
But even with such a lowly target, the under-23 national team still failed to qualify to the knockout stage of the recent SEA Games in Singapore.
However, to lose that heavily to a war-torn country who can’t play their home games within their own borders is nothing short of shameful.
Even the head coach of the Palestine team was surprised at how easy it was for his boys, telling the media during the post-match conference that Malaysia head coach Dollah Salleh needs to revamp the team by changing the players.
Dollah expectedly bore the brunt of the blame in the defeat, with Bernama reporting that he was due to meet with FAM’s Technical and Youth Development Football Committee to answer for the defeat.
However, many football pundits and commentators have also opined that this is not solely the coach’s fault, and changing players will not rectify this problem.
This is because the new players will not be any better than the current crop, as they too only played in the M-League, under the Malaysian football system.
The more vocal section of fans have provided one solution; that the rot starts with those in the FAM themselves, led by the crown prince of Pahang Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah.
They said that the Malaysian football development system has showed no progress due to FAM’s lack of initiative and ideas, sticking to the tried and tested that last worked in the 80’s and 90’s period of football.
Again fans’ call for FAM to be revamped and for Tengku Abdullah to step down has grown louder, especially when they were already upset with FAM, even before the 6-0 defeat.
They were upset that the M-League was stopped for 50 days to allow an inconsequential ‘circus’ match against Tottenham Hotspur to take place, and for the matches to inexplicably resume in the middle of the Ramadan month.
But will all this anger bring about any significant changes?
After all, this is not the first time that Malaysia has suffered a massive defeat.
In 2009, Malaysia lost 5-0 at home to UAE in an Asian Cup qualifying match.
A post-match fan riot, media outrage and coach firing later, the same officials still kept their FAM posts and Malaysian football continued on limply at its mediocre usual.
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