KUALA LUMPUR – Former national football coaches point to national head coach Kim Pan-gon’s lineup choices as the main factor behind Malaysia’s defeat to Tajikistan in last night’s Pestabola Merdeka final.
They believe that Pan-gon’s mistake was making several significant changes by fielding players like Brendan Gan, Safawi Rasid, and Dominic Tan, despite knowing they lacked playing time.
Speaking to Scoop, former Harimau Muda coach Azraai Khor Abdullah said that Pan-gon should have had the ability to find alternative players, instead of relying on footballers who had been struggling with their form.
“Pan-gon should have known better, and there was no need for him to field players who didn’t bring any impact to the team.
“Players like Safawi have been struggling with their form, and I personally believe that he shouldn’t have played last night.
“Safawi was struggling to get past the opposition’s defense on many occasions, and it was clearly evident that our pattern of play was affected due to his tiredness.
“However, I can’t entirely blame Pan-gon as he could have selected players like Safawi and Akyar Rashid based on his coaching staff’s advice.
“We also need to understand that these are Johor Darul Takzim (JDT) players. Even though they have not been playing regularly for their team, they have been training with some of the finest world-class coaches at JDT, and that could be the reason why they were selected for the national camp.
“But Pan-gon got his calculations a bit wrong this time as the head coach should have completely monitored the players’ condition before fielding them,” said Azraai.
Former Harimau Malaya coach Abdul Rahman Ibrahim echoed a similar belief, saying that Pan-gon’s lineup caused the defeat against Tajikistan, and that he needs to take the blame for it.
“The lineup of Pan-gon was a bit confusing for me, and I have no idea why he had to include Safawi in the starting eleven.
“Safawi is clearly out of form and lacked game time at JDT, and we were poor in building up our attack because of Safawi’s poor decision-making and movements throughout the game.
“Pan-gon has to take the blame for this by blindly fielding the player in the final without finding an alternative.
“I hope that he learns from this mistake and moves on with better planning in the World Cup qualifiers,” said Rahman.
In last night’s post-match conference, Pan-gon accepted responsibility for Harimau Malaya’s 4-2 loss to Tajikistan and said that his team succumbed to the pressure he put on them to win the 42nd edition of the tournament.
Up next, Malaysia will begin their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign against Kyrgyzstan on November 16 at Bukit Jalil National Stadium.
Malaysia is grouped with Chinese Taipei, Kyrgyzstan, and Oman in Group D for the qualifiers. – October 18, 2023