Moulding a new Malaysian generation
December 18, 2011
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By Mark Lomas
(Archive)
Malaysia is a country in which English football is king. Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have all visited Southeast Asia on pre-season tours in recent years, with tens of thousands of Malaysian supporters flocking to see their Premier League heroes in the flesh. But while the country adores watching soccer played 9,000 miles away, the reputation of the national team leaves much to be desired. Malaysia's most famous soccer exports are not players or managers, but businessman; QPR owner Tony Fernandes and Cardiff City majority shareholder Vicent Tan ensure there is a Malaysian presence in the English game, but their patronage has done little to enhance the national side's standing.
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Malaysia international football zenith came last year, when they won the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup
However, things do appear to be changing. Last year's AFF Suzuki Cup title provided a watershed moment for football in Malaysia - a shock 4-2 aggregate victory over hosts Indonesia securing the biggest piece of regional silverware in their history. It was hailed as a new dawn and while elimination from the second round of World Cup qualifiers this July at the hands of neighbours Singapore was a bitter pill to swallow, the Under-23 side attracted more positive headlines by beating Pakistan and then Lebanon to progress to the final round of 2012 Olympic qualifying. The first three games have brought three defeats, but there have been no embarrassments and the Harimau Muda (Young Tigers) were ten minutes away from beating Bahrain in their last outing before a dramatic comeback prevented them from registering a first win.
Nurturing young Malaysian talent has been a chief goal of the country's football association for more than a decade; it was at the turn of the millennium that Malaysia's deep-seated love of English football manifested itself in the hiring of its fifth Englishman as national team coach: Allan Harris the man charged with developing a team of youngsters into a competitive unit.
Harris earned his stripes as Terry Venables' assistant, when it appeared the pair were destined to join the likes of Morecambe and Wise and the Two Ronnies as one of England's most famous double acts. Together at Crystal Palace, QPR, Barcelona and Tottenham, he stood as El Tel's right-hand man for more than a decade, winning silverware with each club along the way.
But having spent much of his professional life in the shadow of a revered contemporary - his brother Ron 'Chopper' Harris became a legend and all-time leading appearance maker for Chelsea during a 19-year career at Stamford Bridge - the lure of a solo managerial stint was impossible for Harris to resist and in 1988, he left Venables and Spurs for Espanyol. It was to prove an ill-fated move, with a change in president leading to him being ousted without even taking a training session.
His first real appointment was at Egyptian giants Al Ahly, who he led to two straight domestic titles and the 1993 African Cup Winners' Cup. After leaving Cairo in 1995 the work dried up but in 2000, six years after former partner in crime Venables was given the England job, an international coaching opportunity also came Harris' way when Malaysia came calling.
"An agent friend of mine rang and he said there was a job going in Malaysia," Harris recalls to ESPNsoccernet. "I had never been there before but my uncle was in the Ghurkhas and had served there. I told him I'd been offered a job and asked what he thought. He told me to go for it and promised I'd love it; he was absolutely right.
"I thought I could give it a try so I went to meet the Malaysian FA and they were very charming. When they showed me where I would be living, I couldn't believe it. It was fabulous. Settling in was made easier by the fact everyone spoke English and drove on the left-hand side of the road. The weather was lovely, too, everything was perfect. At the start I used to go in and ask what the weather forecast was like and was told 'Allan, you are a typical Englishman, it's going to be 100 degrees everyday'."
As a successful assistant himself, Harris was grateful to have a very capable coach at his disposal in Malaysia, citing the presence of Bhaskaran Sathianathan - who later worked with Arsenal's Malaysian Soccer Schools and managed the national team between 2007 and 2009 - as crucial to helping him acclimatise to Southeast Asia life.
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Alongside Terry Venables, Allan Harris helped guide Barcelona to the 1986 European Cup
"Having a good assistant is so important and Bhaskaran was great," Harris says. "He spoke perfect English but beyond the potential language barriers, it's more the culture you have to learn and getting help with that is key. I have worked in places where you need to speak a different language before and it can become difficult to communicate. However, I found the Malaysian players and coaches were just thirsting for knowledge all the time, they wanted to learn and we just gelled right from day one."
While Al Ahly was like a managerial pressure-cooker for Harris, the Malaysia post was more akin to a sauna at a luxury spa. Simply tasked with improving the football fortunes of a nation that had previously struggled to make it in to the top 100 of FIFA's world rankings, the former Barcelona assistant was told not to worry about results and encouraged to focus on broadening the horizons of Malaysia's young players.
"The team that I had was a young team. I used to go in with my assistant every Monday to have a board meeting with the Malaysian FA and they'd say 'these are the offers we've had, where do you want to play?' We went to Singapore, the Maldives, Australia, New Zealand - I could just select where I wanted to go and they financed it. They were young lads and I wanted to give them as much experience as possible, so I thought travelling around was the best thing for them.
"My goal was to try and improve them and I tried to focus on youth, bringing a lot of young boys in to give them the opportunity to gain some valuable experience. They got to travel and play against difficult and better quality opposition, my aim was to advance them all which I think we did. I spent a lot of time on coaching, trying to pass on ideas and felt I built a real bond with the players; after coming from big clubs like Barca, taking a national team was interesting."
Through Harris' four years in charge, there was little in terms of tangible achievements to celebrate for the Malay Tigers. The first stage of 2002 World Cup qualifying saw them drawn with a rampant Qatar side, who cruised through the group. A home draw - the Qatari's only dropped points - was an admirable result, though, and Malaysia finished the campaign unbeaten on their own soil. The campaign was perhaps most notable for Harris banning three players - Kamarulzaman Hassan, Azmin Azram Abdul Aziz and fan favourite for staying out late at a nightclub before one of the group games.
The home form in the World Cup qualifiers meant the 2002 Tiger Cup (now the AFF Suzuki Cup) was greeted with much optimism in Malaysia. The goals of young striker Indra Putra Mahayuddin - still a part of the national team-set-up - fired them through to the semi-finals as group winners, but Harris' side were knocked out by Indonesia and then defeated by Vietnam in the third-place play-off. The conclusion to the tournament was made worse by the fact that Thailand - who Malaysia had beaten comfortably 3-1 in the group stage - won the final on penalties.
Another tricky qualification group for the 2004 AFC Asian Cup saw Harris' side finish third behind Iraq and Bahrain; his youngsters struggling to assert themselves against a better quality of opposition. By the time Harris' reign came to an end in 2004, there was criticism of him in the Malaysian press for what they perceived as a propensity to pick players based on their loyalty to him rather than their form. But having become accustomed to the media glare, particularly during his time at Barcelona, the Englishman was wholly unfazed by what was written about him.
"I couldn't see how the press could have had big expectations because if I asked you if Malaysia was a big footballing nation you'd obviously say no. I didn't really have that many problems with the press - I've dealt with them all over the world and it was no different. We had some good results and all I hoped for was that the guys felt like they were getting better."
When Harris left his position, there were murmurings that it was because he was about to be downgraded to coach of the Under-23 team. But the former Barca and Spurs assistant claims that was not the case, maintaining that his tenure had simply run its course.
"I decided to leave," Harris insists. "I'd done five years out there and the decisive factor was that I wanted to spend more time with my grandchildren in England and see them growing up. Once a year was not enough and after nearly five years there I thought 'I've given it a good go' and so I returned.
"Some people suggested I was going to be demoted and that's why I left - but that just wasn't the case. I was always on the same wavelength as the Malaysian FA. I told them well in advance that I would be leaving at the end of my contract and not signing another one. I always believed that it was better to tell the truth. They understood completely. I like to think I made a positive impact on Malaysian football and I still speak to people there. I think they would still have me back if I wanted to go."
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Allan Harris: Four years in charge of Malaysia
Since leaving the post in 2004, Harris has not returned to work and is simply "enjoying retirement", his silverware-laden spell at Al Ahly preventing him from being grouped with the likes of Carlos Queiroz, Brian Kidd and Sammy Lee - excellent assistants who failed to make the grade as managers.
For the Malaysian national team, it's been a rocky road in the intervening years. In 2006, the Malay Tigers were left humiliated when they took on a team of amateurs put together on reality TV show MyTeam and only managed a one-goal victory, but the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup triumph indicates that the country is now back on the right track. There have even been suggestions that QPR owner Tony Fernandes would be keen to hand prolific Pelita Jaya FC striker Safee Sali an opportunity to be the first Malaysian player in the Premier League. Harris, though, believes those 9,335 people who liked the Facebook page 'Safee Sali to play for QPR' may be waiting a long while yet.
"I never really saw any players who I thought could make a name for themselves in England if I'm being honest. I think most Malaysian players would struggle with the physicality of the Premier League and I don't think there will be any good enough to make the grade over here in the immediate future."
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Malaysia: A new hope
July 7, 2012
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By John Duerden
(Archive)
There was one thing that even the mighty Mokhtar Dahari, the Malaysian marauder with tree-trunk thighs who mesmerised Asian defences in the 70s and 80s, didn't do. He never played in the European leagues.
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Manabu Saito of Japan shoots as Nazmi Faiz of Malaysia looks on
• Lomas: Moulding a new Malaysian generation
Former team-mates tell of offers spurned from the likes of Arsenal - a team he destroyed in a 1975 friendly - and others. In those days, the buzz from such a player took a long time to reach the big leagues, if it ever did. Terry Mancini, part of the Gunners' backline on that steamy night in Kuala Lumpur, talked of the conditions and the location with wonder, a part of a different and very exotic world. Things have changed. If Mancini was playing now, the owner of his club could be Malaysian.
On the field though, the country has yet to make much of an impact in Europe. That could change in the next few years and not just because of the growing numbers of businessman involved with western clubs but because there is a new generation of very young, and very talented, players breaking through.
Seeing stars in the big leagues is an end in itself for Malaysian fans. As well as the national pride that fans across Asia feel when they see their compatriots playing in front of packed European houses, there is something more at stake.
It wasn't that long ago when Malaysia were the kings of Southeast Asia and respected around the continent. The likes of Japan with Yasuhiko Okudera and South Korea with Cha Bum-Keun often headed to Kuala Lumpur to fight it out with Super Mokh for the Merdaka Cup, a valued prize and a replica of which still sits proudly in the lobby of the Korean FA headquarters.
There were some memorable matches, not least a 2-0 win over Japan in 1976 in front of 55,000 in Kuala Lumpur and a Mokhtar diving header in his 100th appearance. That's not all. Olympic qualification in 1972 and 1980 (though the team joined the boycott of Moscow), third place at the 1974 Asian Games and successive qualifications for the Asian Cups in that decade made Malaysia a worthy adversary.
Super Mokh tragically died in 1991 at the age of 37. In that decade, the domestic league was hit by corruption and mismanagement. The new millennium didn't bring much of a change of fortune. The 2007 Asian Cup was a nadir with the co-host losing all three games. The Tigers bounced back to win the ASEAN title in 2010, a much-valued prize in the region, but the glory days still feel like the distant past.
It has been a long journey but there is some light shining through with a new generation of young stars like Nazmi Faiz, a cultured midfielder with composure on the ball that belies his 17 years. He has already agreed to join Portuguese top tier outfit Beira Mar. A one-time home of Eusebio, a striker perhaps not too dissimilar in style to Super Mokh, it could be a fantastic place for the player, who will sign his contract in August when he turns 18.
Jose Mourinho himself gave this special one his seal of approval for the move when he visited Kuala Lumpur in June. "The Portuguese League is a good place for them to adapt to European football," he sid. "It's a little bit like Brazil... in terms of technique and creativity. The people in Portugal are nice and will make foreign players feel welcome."
Nazmi previously came close to a move to Cardiff but couldn't get a work permit and many in Malaysia agree with Mourinho's assessment, feeling that having to swap South Wales for Aveiro could be a blessing in disguise.
The increasing number of Malaysian tycoons in Europe could be another stroke of luck. Asian owners will, rightly or wrongly, often look to bring their countrymen to their club. When Manchester City belonged to Thaksin Shinawatra, City did their best to sign Thai talent but there just wasn't any that met the required standard. Instead of heading to the upper reaches of the Premier league immediately, Cardiff and QPR could provide more accessible stepping stones for those with the ambition and the attributes.
As well as Nazmi, a look at the qualification campaign for the Asian Under-22 tournament reveals other talents. Take Rozaimi Rahman. When your first two appearances in the shirt of your national team are against Chelsea and Syria then you get an inkling that the career is going to be an interesting one. The 20-year-old took the qualification campaign by storm.
Six goals in the first two games caused clubs in the Netherlands and France to take notice and watch in the next game against Vietnam. He grabbed a hat-trick and more European attention. "What can I say about Rozaimi?" coach Ong Kim Swee said, asking the question on millions of Malaysian lips. "He is an asset to the team and the country and it's very difficult to find a striker who can score consistently in three or four games. His performance is a very good sign for youth development in the country."
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Thailand's Adisak Krisorn battles for the ball with Malaysia's Nazmi Faiz
Malaysia have an interesting youth set up. Ong is also the coach of Harimau Muda A - a feeder club for Malaysia's Under-23 team and one that plays in Singapore's S-League. There is little doubt that the youngsters benefit from serious time playing together under Ong's watchful eye. The man himself has become something of a father figure to a young generation of players and is recognised as one of the best coaches in the region when it comes to working with youth talent.
The talent is there but it is not that simple. In the final game of qualification earlier this week and needing to win against hosts Myanmar to seal a place in next year's tournament, the Young Tigers just could not produce the goods - although there are serious allegations that Myanmar had fielded overage players.
Once again in Malaysia, just as expectations started to rise, the team failed to deliver. Switching off when the pressure is on has been a familiar trait over the years. Now it's up to this new generation. If the Young Tigers can avoid falling prey to old habits then a new start is on the cards for Malaysia.
It would be good for Asian football if they can do so. Some old foes around the continent are waiting to do battle once more. This Malaysia may not have Super Mokh but a decade from now, who knows where their stars will be shining.
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Perak fear Johor Darul Takzim backlash
By RIZAL ABDULLAH
Azraai Khor Abdullah
IN coach Azraai Khor Abdullah’s own words “the timing is just not right” for Perak to face Johor Darul Takzim in a Super League encounter at Larkin Stadium tomorrow night.
The former Kedah and Negri Sembilan boss, who has the midas touch in grooming young talent into stars, said Perak could feel Johor Darul Takzim’s backlash following their shock 3-2 defeat to Pahang in Kuantan on Tuesday,
At the same time, Perak can consider themselves lucky winners over T-Team in their first match – thanks to an own goal by T-Team defender Nuraliff Zainal Abidin who headed the ball into his own net deep into injury time in their opening match in Lumut on the same day.
“It is bad time for us to face them (Johor Darul Takzim) after their shock defeat to Pahang. We are in for a very tough, tough time at Larkin,” Azraai told sports247.my.
Azraai added Johor Darul Takzim’s defeat to Pahang at the Darul Makmur Stadium after leading 2-0 at halftime could have severe repercussions for his team who are still struggling to get their act right.
Azraai, who took over the hotseat this season, was quick to admit Perak have yet to “click” and the win over T-Team is a big “bonus”.
“Johor Darul Takzim are still the team to beat. They have the players to win matches. One defeat does not mean that it is all over for them. The season has just started,” he said.
Azraai revealed French striker Karim Raouni is not in the team to Johor Baru as he is nursing a hamstring injury. He also missed the match against T-Team.
“I expect coach Fandi (Ahmad) to field his best team. They will be come at us from all angles. We have to be prepared and do our best to contain them,” added Azraai.
www.sports247.my/2013/01/perak-fear-johor-darul-takzim-backlash/