Malaysia Boleh!

I have no words to say when our national football team won the Sea Games gold medal in Laos recently. I hope the victory is a turning point for the future of our national football.

Our Tigers finally roared after 20 years of waiting, they triumphed over Vietnam in the football final of the 25th SEA Games in Laos, 1-0 score line giving Malaysia's first gold medal in the event in two decades. Malaysia were last crowned in 1989 defeating tough rivals Singapore in the 1989 edition of the games that was hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

Vietnam trounced Singapore 4-1 at their semi final while Malaysia had beaten hosts Laos 3-1 in the same stage. Malaysia overturned a lackluster first-half performance to beat it's opponent, it defeated Vietnam although lost an earlier encounter between the two teams at the group stage.

The win is all the more precious for Under-23 squad, which had arrived at the SEA Games with little to no hope of leaving with a medal. Now, they are coming home with the gold. Our side has fallen a long way since the heady days of the 1970s and 1980.

Failure to nurture talent, racism, poor management, cronyism, corruption and a lack of government support are the main problems that haunting Malaysia’s football. It seems like these problems are handled in the better manner now as our performance is recovering from day to day.

Congratulations to Malaysian Tigers for fulfilling 27 million Malaysian’s dream, definitely the main credit goes to the coach K Rajagopal 'Tiger King' for the hard works in building up the 25^th Sea Games football squad and his superb guidance to his boys.

HEAD COACH K RAJAGOPAL WITH HIS BOYS

TEAM CAPTAIN AIDIL ZAQUAN (8) WITH GURUSAMY (16)

MALAYSIAN PLAYERS CELEBRATING THEIR VICTORY OVER VIETNAM


THE STAFF:

Team Manager
Datuk Redzuan Sheikh Ahmad

Assistant Manager
Datuk Subahan Kamal

Head Coach
K. Rajagopal

Assistant Coach
Tan Cheng Hoe

Goalkeeping Coach
Mohd. Faozi Mukhlas


THE SQUAD:

Goalkeepers
Mohd Farizal Marlias
Mohd Sharbini Mohd Alawee

Defenders
Mohd Sabre Mat Abu
Mohd Azmi Muslim
Mohd Asraruddin Putra Omar
Mohd Nasriq Baharom
Mohd Muslim Ahmad
Mohd Aidil Zafuan Abdul Radzak
Mahali Jasuli
Mazlizam Mohamad

Midfielders
Baddrol Bakhtiar
S. Kunanlan
K. Gurusamy
Mohd Safiq Rahim
Mohd Amirul Hadi Zainal
Amar Rohidan

Strikers
Abdul Manaf Mamat
Norshahrul Idlan Talaha
Ahmad Fakri Saarani
Mohd Zaquan Adha Abdul Radzak