National team need to plan for the future

WELL, the national football team’s quest for history is all over, for now.

That came when our Harimau Malaya side went down 4-6 on aggregate to Singapore in the second round of the Asian Zone World Cup qualifiers last week. Malaysia have never made the third round of the qualifiers since taking part in 1974.

And now that it’s the fasting month, most, if not all, local sporting events will be taking a break.
That should give national football coach Datuk K. Rajagopal and the powers-that-be in the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) time to reflect on what has transpired as well as to plan for the future.

Let’s hope Rajagopal and Co will take this time to go back to the drawing board to find out where they went wrong. It should be a period for them to work on ironing out the kinks and overcoming the weaknesses in the team.

After all, there is nothing like putting things in perspective on hindsight.

His is a young team, which included players from the Under-23 Harimau Muda squad.

But, from the look of things, he seems to have the spine of the team in place.

Let’s run the rule on his team based on the return-leg clash against Singapore last week.
In goal, he can always rely on the superb Khairul Fahmi Che Mat. In the return-leg of the qualifier against Singapore, it was the Kelantan goalkeeper who kept Malaysia in the game with some splendid saves.

Many felt that had Khairul been available for the first-leg match at the Jalan Bandar Stadium in Singapore, Malaysia would not have lost 3-5. But that’s a conjecture.

In defence, Mohd Aidil Zafuan Abdul Razak, if he is fit, is a natural leader. Too bad he was not available for the first-leg tie and could only last about 20 minutes in the return leg. But, when fit, he can be a colossus in defence.

As for the midfield, skipper Shafiq Rahim is the first choice to pull the strings, setting up play, dictating the tempo and chipping in with a goal or two with his deft freekick speciality.

He too was missing from the return-leg tie against Singapore and how sorely Malaysia felt his absence. There was simply no one else who could lead the line or boss the midfield.

Then, up front there is the powerfully-built, talented and goal-scorer supreme Safee Sali.
Malaysians have always lamented the demise of the legendary Mokhtar Dahari. No one has ever come close to emulating him, until now.

Fans are now comparing Safee to the late Mokhtar, who is still revered by many as the best ever striker produced by Malaysia. In fact, Safee is stoutly-built like Mokhtar too.

And both have such tremendous power in their shots!

So, the spine is there. Now all Rajagopal and his team of coaches have to do is fill in the blanks with steady and reliable players.

Let us not forget that there are others who have done well too, especially striker Norshahrul Idlan Talaha and wingers Mohd Amirulhadi Zainal and S. Kunalan.

The trio are vital cogs to the national team too. Norshahrul brings a touch of trickery to the forward line while Amirul and Kunalan add pace and panache on the wings.

By the look of it, Rajagopal has quite a settled national senior team in his hands. He only needs to look at overhauling the defence, which was a real letdown during the qualifiers, and find another midfielder to complement the work done by Shafiq.

Of course it is easy for many of us couch potatoes us to sit here and comment, complain or judge the team.

But it is Rajagopal who has to find the players, set the game plan, get them to gel as a unit and finally get the desired results.

Otherwise it is his neck that is on the line. So, all the best coach.