How Malaysia never reached the World Cup
(Harimau Malaya's 40-year chronicle of failure)
Author: Lucius Maximus
With such a depressing title, as expected, one can only read about heartaches and heartaches of the Malaysian fans over the 4 decades as the administrators of the national football team made more and more promises in vain to bring the national team to the World Cup finals.
(Harimau Malaya's 40-year chronicle of failure)
Author: Lucius Maximus
With such a depressing title, as expected, one can only read about heartaches and heartaches of the Malaysian fans over the 4 decades as the administrators of the national football team made more and more promises in vain to bring the national team to the World Cup finals.
We, the children of the 70s had many fond moments, glued to the radio sets visualising in our minds how our national team was then giving a good fight and even defeating many teams which are considered powerhouses of Asian football - e.g. South Korea, Japan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. If we were lucky, we would have the pleasure of Malaysia pulverising minnows like the Philippines (15-0) and Burma in a padi-field like muddy fields of Stadium Merdeka. In fact, there was an urban legend then that Malaysia had a regular in-house bomoh (shaman) who had a 100% success rate in bringing in the rain. You see, Malaysia fared better in drenched situations.
The author painstakingly researched and re-enacted those nail-biting moments of the glory days of Malaysian football. A time when we were ranked easily as one of the better teams in Asia before FIFA ranking came to fore. In August 1993, we ranked #75 in the FIFA ranking. Today we are #156.
For starters, Indonesia actually partook the 1938 World Cup as Dutch East Indies where they were thrashed by then a superpower of football, Hungary 6-0.
After Malaysia's high achievement of making it the Olympic in 1972 and defeating USA 3-0, their interest to indulge in the World Cup must have started. Never mind that they lost the remaining 2 games and the U.S.A. was a novice then.
With a string of talented and dedicated players, we actually had a crack at high-level football. We had a few memorable games with international teams who were impressed with many of our player, for example, Mokhtar Dahari.
The journey to the coveted final rounds of the World Cup, however, had been by lousy luck, heartaches and horrible management. From 1974 to 2014, we had made 11 unsuccessful attempts in our pursuit to play amongst the best. Each journey pretty much starts and ends in the same way. We would kick up dirt to boast of yet another new attempt with a new foreign coach with an excellent track record and a local assistant which an illustrious career. The team will go on in a lot of pomp and splendour. The first matches would be not so promising but barely scrape through. They would promise of a better show in the next but would end up worse off than the first! They would miss the World Cup and had to contend watching the finals over the telly.
Excuses were aplenty, but the truth would be lousy planning (like training in Frasier's Hill for a game in Dubai, indiscipline, factions amongst players, cronyism, the mismanagement by the F.A.M. officials (from the most vibrant association it had become one of the most amateurish and poorest) and possibly intervention by bookies!
The author went as far as to suggest a few steps to help to improve the state of football in the country.
P.S. I met a F.A.M. official in a social function recently. Engaging in small talks revealed the old dogs are still quite passionate that the board should continue to be led by royal figurines. He alleged that only they had the charisma and potential to lure financial support for its continuity. Lest he forgot that any successful venture would automatically draw positive attention and money would start rolling in like an avalanche!
P.P.S. When you team starts losing to teams which have more killing fields than playing fields (Laos) or get whipped by groups known as whipping boys (Philippines) or countries with more mountains than fields (Nepal), you know you are in trouble. The trouble is you fail to realise than your contemporaries reached the Quarter Finals of World Cup while you have become more amateurish and shoddy. Japan who learnt from Malaysia on how to build a football league has now an enviable association while you struggle with mediocrity and a semiprofessional league comprising overweight stars who are way past their shelf life!
Excuses were aplenty, but the truth would be lousy planning (like training in Frasier's Hill for a game in Dubai, indiscipline, factions amongst players, cronyism, the mismanagement by the F.A.M. officials (from the most vibrant association it had become one of the most amateurish and poorest) and possibly intervention by bookies!
The author went as far as to suggest a few steps to help to improve the state of football in the country.
P.S. I met a F.A.M. official in a social function recently. Engaging in small talks revealed the old dogs are still quite passionate that the board should continue to be led by royal figurines. He alleged that only they had the charisma and potential to lure financial support for its continuity. Lest he forgot that any successful venture would automatically draw positive attention and money would start rolling in like an avalanche!
P.P.S. When you team starts losing to teams which have more killing fields than playing fields (Laos) or get whipped by groups known as whipping boys (Philippines) or countries with more mountains than fields (Nepal), you know you are in trouble. The trouble is you fail to realise than your contemporaries reached the Quarter Finals of World Cup while you have become more amateurish and shoddy. Japan who learnt from Malaysia on how to build a football league has now an enviable association while you struggle with mediocrity and a semiprofessional league comprising overweight stars who are way past their shelf life!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Comments
Post a Comment