KUALA LUMPUR − The mystery over the absence of several key players from the national team in last month’s Asean Football Confederation (AFF) Cup 2020 in Singapore needs to be clarified, said former national head coach B. Sathianathan.
He said it was possible that there could be a correlation between their absence and the team’s poor performance in the competition.
He said the mystery should be explained in detail in the report prepared by the Harimau Malaya independent investigation body as the debacle had led to Tan Cheng Hoe resigning as head coach.
“Players, who should be in the national team, were not there. Were these players − like what Tan (Cheng Hoe) said − injured or tired? The players this time (in the AFF Cup squad) were different and many (old faces) did not play. So, why were they absent?
“That’s what I want to know from this investigation so that we can all assess what caused the team to play so badly. Suddenly, the players we were counting on were not there,” Sathianathan, who is also the president of the Football Coaches Association of Malaysia (PBJM), said when contacted by Bernama today.
More worryingly, the 53-year-old coach resigned with Malaysia having just six months to prepare for the third round of the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers in June.
Sathianathan said that two defenders − Matthew Davies and La’Vere Corbin-Ong − and two midfielders − Muhamad Nor Azam Abdul Azih and Mohammad Syamer Kutty Abba − were among the players who could have strengthened the national team in the AFF Cup last month.
“They are among the players who played a big role in the second round of the 2022 World Cup/2023 Asian Cup qualifiers,” he said.
Apart from the four players, the squad named for the AFF Cup also did not have naturalised player Mohamadou Sumareh, goalkeeper Mohd Farizal Marlias and several others despite them being fit and having had sufficient playing time in the domestic league.
As such, Sathianathan hoped that this issue of “player absence” would not recur, more so, ahead of the third round of the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers, adding that all coaches should be given the power to determine the players they need.
In the 2020 AFF Cup in Singapore, Malaysia − who were targeting a second consecutive final appearance and only named 24 players instead of the 30 allowed − failed to get past the group stage.
Following their failure, Cheng Hoe resigned as head coach − a post he had held since 2017. However, some demanded that the FAM top leadership should also take responsibility for the debacle by resigning as well.
On Saturday, FAM deputy president Datuk Mohd Yusoff Mahadi was reported to have said that the candidate to replace Cheng Hoe would be decided after they received the report from the independent investigation body. – Bernama, January 19, 2022
