The Malaysian dilema

A football mad nation such as Malaysia deserve a better professional league, better football development structure and a better national team. And we keep saying this for the past thirty years.

0-2 defeat by Qatar summed up the whole thing. It is indeed not the end of our qualifying campaign, but the performance in Doha proved that FAM need to open up for new ideas, a quick measure for an instant impact. We desperately need a quick fix, fans being frustrated for decades and we demand for massive improvement.

All south east asian teams lost their opening game. A big indicator that football in this side of the world is still in a developing phase. A situation we need to observe carefully, and a more serious comprehensive strategic plan is now becoming a must for most of the Asean FAs.

The fundamental for a strong national team is all about the quality of the domestic league, a systematic youth program and also players who ply their trade in foreign leagues. In our case, currently we relied too much on Harimau Muda program while the Super League quality is still doomed in 'c' grade. I personaly think FAM didn't put enough effort to upgrade the level of competitiveness of our league. After 20 years of profesionalism, i expect our League should be in 'B' grade level and qualify for AFC Champions League tournament.

We certainly able to produce talents, identify those talents, groom with care, expose the raw talents to so many international matches and challenge for honours at Asean region. But, the question is, are we too comfortable with Asean glory and refused to venture further up in the Asia level?

For me, the series of failure down the years was due to the limited physical conditions and technical ability of our local players. No disrespect to our local talents, but we have seen so many failed national teams were due to the same reason. The fact that current development method can't bring our football to the next level. Asian level i mean.

After all these dissapointing years, after all of these same old method, should we try something extreme? A solution may not be a popular one, but i suggest FAM should heavily consider on bringing in naturalised players.

Short term driven, considerably a quick fix, a suplimentary for the well developed Harimau Muda product. Can you imagine if a small sized Irfan Fazail play alongside Effa Owona? Or can you imagine if tricky Nurshahrul Idlan Talaha play alongside Johor's Orlando?

Please consider this as a short term, mega project for our football. As a one off project, we need to give a try. Evaluate, identify the right players with the right attitude, and with high interest to play for 'Negaraku'. At initial stage, bring in six to seven naturalised players. Play them together on regular basis, aim for higher FIFA rank and qualify for Olympic games and Asia Cup.

For me personaly, this is the best option available in short term basis, to bring Malaysia to the next level. A dilema could be, but the Malaysian fans could not wait for another thirty years.