The guests invited were Datuk Anifah Aman, (Deputy President of FAM and current manager of the Pasukan Kebangsaan); Datuk Paduka Haji Ahmad Basri Akil, (the 'father of development' for Kedah football and vocal critic of FAM) and Rashid Hassan, (former National, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur goalkeeper and in BorakBola's view, one of THE man that ever protected the Malaysian goal). It was moderated by the experienced host and commentator, Zainal Abidin Rawop
Monday's show was a commendable effort by the Unit Sukan TV of RTM to provide a platform to discuss about the current malady affecting the state of football in the country - perhaps jolted by the resignation of the Deputy President of FAM, the Tengku Mahkota of Pahang on Sunday and Malaysia's poor performance so far in the 2007 Asian Cup.
However, despite some valid points raised and discussed by the guests or presented by the callers, to be honest there's nothing new or nothing extraordinarily shocking that the average Malaysian football fan don't already know. It is basically the same thing over and over again. Like playing a bad record.
In a nutshell, it's all down to poor development and transition between and from the youth to senior level at all sides, be it State or National and in truth, despite all the arguments and excuses thrown around, this is simply down to poor and irresponsible management.
Of course, it boils down deeper than that as there as many other factors involved but that is one of the biggest reason why football in this country has reached such a level.
Anyway, BorakBola would like to touch one issue in particular which was raised during the show. Fokus Bola had a quick SMS survey asking viewers whether Malaysia should start to use naturalised foreign players in the national team (see half of Singapore National Team, Quintana for Bahrain, Alex and Tulio Tanaka for Japan etc)
55% replied to say YES while 44% said NO. Datuk Paduka Haji Ahmad Basri said "not yet", while Datuk Anifah (being the politician that he is) cleverly said, "we are not closed to the idea". Rashid Hassan summed it best, "No, it's as if our own people are not capable of doing it ourselves"
BorakBola's stand on this? NO!
A few reasons for this:
Firstly, do not judge the current crop of national players as representation that Malaysians cannot play football. We cannot allow poor selection or poor management and development preventing us to see the real picture, the real issue behind all this. It is NOT that we don't have players that are capable of playing, it is because the talents have not been spotted, developed, cultured, trained or selected properly. Having naturalised, foreign born players will not solve the problems in the long run, it will only (perhaps) provide us with a stop-gap, quick-fix solution. What we need to see is development for the future. Surely, with a population of over 27 million people, there MUST be an Anak Malaysia - be it Malay, Chinese, Indian or even Orang Asli that is better than one or two imported player (who cannot even start in his own national team otherwise). Yes, the situation is dire but how desperate are we that we need to resort to importing players from another country?
Remember that current Asian Cup quarterfinalist, Vietnam, does not have any foreign-born players on their roster. So does Indonesia and Thailand. Of course, we realise that all of these countries have bigger populations to choose from than Malaysia (therefore a bigger pool to choose from) but without proper selection, management and training by the relevant bodies and organisation in those countries, it wouldn't mean a thing. (India for example, is the second most populated country in the world, but without good management they have yet to produce a world class football team. And UAE has a population of less than 5 million, yet we even have problems beating them)
We shouldn't look at Singapore simply for their inclusion of foreign citizens in their team. Theirs is a simple case of, small population = need to win immediately at all cost. Which is why they also have foreign table-tennis and badminton players. In anyway, while they have become the current ASEAN champions in football, remember it is their Singaporean-born players who usually pose more threats. As can be seen from the recent friendly against Australia, players like Khairul Amri and Indra Sahdan were giving the Aussies a good run for their money. And their youth football development is good. Will Malaysia one day be able to introduce 16 years olds like Hariss Harun on an international match against top class team like Singapore did? Not likely if we don't something about football development at this country [NB: BorakBola will start to include news from the junior national teams soon, as we do have some exciting young talents out there]
We are not surprised by the poll result. Understandably a section of the Malaysian football fans are fed-up with the team losing on a continuous basis. Many would like to see something happening right now. Plus it is only natural, that in a country where over half of the population are more passionate about foreign clubs such as Chelsea, Liverpool, Juventus and Manchester United, that the average fan wouldn't mind supporting a national team filled with non-Malaysian born players. As long as the team wins. But we do not agree with winning desperately.
BorakBola may not like Khairy Jamaluddin politically and personally, but he has a few things right when it comes to football. UPB-MY Team have qualified for the Super League next season and in most of the games he has been there on the sidelines supporting his team. He is also one of the few in FAM who showed support for Norizan Bakar when everyone on FAM was flaming the coach and we must admit, although maybe the intention was not 100% honourable when the MyTeam project was launched last year, the idea was there - go around the country to find people who want to play, who could play and train them. If only Khairy would assist FAM by providing a helpful solution to improve football in the country (and not by trying to 'prove a point' by asking to play against the National Team). Rumours has it he could be one of the people in line to be in the new, 'revamped' FAM line-up. We shall wait and see.
Lastly, if Malaysia still would want to go down the same road as Singapore, we must remember that if the root of the problem remains, nothing will change. Get even Ronaldinho in the team and still we are bound to lose matches if the system fails. Japan has come a long way since the days of Wagner Lopes and Ruy Ramos. Japanese players such as Hide Nakata and Nakamura are better than Alex Santos and even then, Alex came to Japan when he was 15. With Tulio Tanaka being the only foreign player (and his father is Japanese) in the current football team, Japan is also slowly going away with foreign born players. (Note that Under-21 players like Lee Tadanori and Mike Havenaar are Japanese-born and thereby Japanese so they don't count)
NB: One of the callers yesterday was Irfan Bakti, remember him? Guess where he is now? Irfan is now the Head Coach of Persipura Jayapura, one of the top teams in Liga Indonesia. Persipura's players include Timnas players such as goalkeeper Jendry Pitoy, Ricardo Salampessy and Boaz Sollosa. Respect!
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