Former Malaysian defender, Santokh Singh has hit the bullseye by rightfully saying that a rojak team will produce rojak.
That is the true state of our national football team that is in Dubai, which comprises foreign “naturalised” players.
We have five naturalised foreign players from different clubs from all over the world, who play for different systems with different strategies and different teammates.
Football is a team sport where players play together and learn each other’s strengths and movement, and for this to happen the team may need to be together and play together for a couple of years.
However, the team that is in Dubai is a team that has been simply put together with foreign ingredients expecting miraculous results.
Sure enough, what we got were disappointing results and performance. Furthermore, our players lack stamina, imagination, confidence and strategy.
The forwards lacked conviction and the mid-fielders were not feeding the forwards effectively.
Our players did not have individual skills and prowess to play dazzling football magic.
When we played Vietnam, they had some players who were able to dribble past ours and they showed some stunning individual feats. We were contented with passing and having ball possession.
In football, ball possession does not win games, pushing forward and scoring wins games.
We need to wake up from our slumber and know that we were once a force to be reckoned with in Asia in the 60s and 70s with our homegrown boys.
Where did we have naturalised foreign players in the national team during that era?
We had legends like Sharuddin Abdullah, Namat Abdullah, Shukor Salleh, Arumugam, Santokh Singh, M Chandran, Soh Chin Aun, Syed Ahmad, Wong Kam Fook, Chow Chee Cheong, Mokhtar Dahari, Santokh and the list goes on and on.
These players were not paid fat sums of money to play for their clubs and nation. They all worked for a living and played for the nation.
We were once the giants of Asia. Now even war torn countries are beating us.
As much as I want the Malaysian team to win their remaining match against Thailand to qualify for the Asian Cup, my gut feeling says that we will lose. We cannot make amends overnight. Do not cheat yourself. Wake up!
Face the reality and do not harp on past glories. Revamp the whole team by scouting for home grown talents.
