The Tragedy & Humiliation Of The Malaysian National Team

Dollah Salleh is a Malaysian football legend. He did well as a player for the national team and Selangor but his career as a coach will forever be tainted after his resignation from the post of head coach for the Malaysian national team. Preceeding his resignation, he had overseen the nation's heaviest defeat in its history, a 10-0 whopping at the hands of United Arab Emirates (UAE). His resignation or sacking whichever came first was inevitable. The results have been abysmal for some time now. To be fair, Malaysia punched above its weight and over-achieved in the AFF Suzuki Cup last year. They relied on the experience of the squad from Datuk K.Rajagopal's successful SEA-Games gold winning and AFF Suzuki Cup squads as well as the experience of Shukor Adan and Indra Putra Mahayuddin without any or many young players in the squad to freshen things up alongside the experienced ones.

Dollah Salleh has to take the blame for the poor results but the players have to shoulder the blame too. According to me, I feel the players from that successful era of 2009-2011, have lost the hunger to succeed. I feel they have become too comfortable and have grown too big for their boots. The other issue is that the conveyor belt of youth has stopped. There are not enough talented youngsters coming through. The Malaysian Super League is one of the best leagues in South East Asia but take the foreigners out and there are not enough Malaysians playing a key role in the centre back and centre forward positions for example.

There have been talk about introducing naturalised players to represent Malaysia after the experiment worked well for Liverpool's pre-season visit but that would be a short-term, stop gap solution and personally, I don't ever favour the concept of naturalising foreigners to play for a national team unless there is some family lineage or the player has migrated into the country since he was a child and has become a citizen. At present, even if Sir Alex Ferguson is convinced to coach the Malaysian side, he will struggle to sufficiently revive the fortunes of the Malaysian national side. The only solution I see is to go back to the basics and invest into the youth, making sure there is a larger pool of talent to choose from across all races in all parts of the country and these youngsters have a pathway into the club sides and then the national team. Patience and careful planning is required to restore the pride of Malaysian football but I have my doubts time will be given and that the right plans will be made and if they are made, I doubt it will be implemented efficiently and with success.