KUALA LUMPUR – Former national captain Ahmad Shahrul Azhar Sofian believes that football clubs competing in the Malaysian Football League should focus on producing more young talents for the national team.
This, he suggests, would enable head coach Kim Pan-gon to have a variety of players for future tournaments.
The former midfielder, who earned 55 caps for Harimau Malaya between 1996-2002, has said that since the National Football Development Programme does not fall under the purview of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), this method is the best way for the governing body to have a huge pool of talent to form a young squad in the future as they currently have an ageing squad.
The average age of Pan-gon’s squad is 28-years-old, with nine players over 30 in the 26-men chosen for the Asian Cup campaign in Qatar.
The oldest player in Pan-gon’s team is 37-year-old midfielder Natxo Insa, who plays for Johor Darul Ta’zim FC.
“The future is in the hands of the youth, and we can’t entirely depend on elite clubs such as JDT, Selangor FC and Terengganu FC to always produce young players for the national team. What about the other clubs, and why aren’t they doing the same?
“All clubs should share equal responsibility in producing players for the betterment of the national football team; otherwise, FAM will have no choice but to rely on overaged players and also naturalised and heritage players.
“I’m not against naturalised and heritage players, as it has been bringing results on the pitch, but this formula will not work in the long run as the team is ageing.
“Clubs should also stop relying on too many import players and should give more chances to local players, exposing them to more tournaments so that they can be scouted for the Harimau Malaya squad.
“By doing this, the national team will also have a lot of competition for players to compete for their positions, as this practice is a norm in other foreign football nations,” said Shahrul when contacted by Scoop.
The 26 players in the Harimau Malaya team are currently from clubs such as JDT (12 players), Sabah FC (four), Selangor FC (three), Kuala Lumpur City FC (three), Negeri Sembilan FC (one), Terengganu FC (one), Indonesia’s Dewa United (one) and Thailand’s Buriram United (one).
At the same time, Shahrul, a former JDT youth development director and Perak FC technical director, further said that Pan-gon’s team had so far performed well after making their comeback to the tournament on merit after 42 years.
“We can see a huge difference with the team compared to our last participation in the tournament in the 2007 edition in Malaysia, and Pan-gon’s team are playing with more desire and passion.
“With Pan-gon in charge, I believe that Harimau Malaya will play in the Asian Cup on a consistent basis in the years to come. If teams like Syria, Tajikistan and Palestine can qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament, I believe we can also do it in the future.
“There is no use in criticising Pan-gon’s choice of players in this tournament, as he knows his players very well. At moments like this, we should not continue to add negativity to the team but be positive about what they have achieved.
“We need to play and get exposed to these high-ranking teams regularly so that one day we can overcome them,” Shahrul added.
Malaysia were eliminated from the tournament’s group stage in their fourth participation in the continental cup – having previously played in the 1976, 1980 and 2007 editions – after consecutive defeats to Jordan and Bahrain.
Currently sitting bottom of Group E, Malaysia will play their final group match against South Korea tomorrow night.
Six out of 11 of South Korea’s line-up play in the top-five leagues in the world: Son Heung-min (Tottenham), Lee Jae-sung (Mainz 05), Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton), Jeong Woo-yeong (VfB Stuttgart), Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain), and Kim Ji-soo (Brentford).
In Harimau Malaya’s last appearance in the 2007 edition, they conceded 12 goals and netted only once in three group matches (China 1-5, Uzbekistan 0-5, and Iran 0-2). – January 24, 2024