Reaching Under-17 Asian Cup a miniature victory in road to 2030

CONGRATULATIONS are in order for the national football Under-16 side for having earned a ticket to the AFC Asian Cup Under-17 tournament next year after a successful qualifying campaign in Indonesia.

In doing so, the team, housed under one roof as the cream of the crop at the Mokhtar Dahari Academy (AMD) in Gambang, Pahang, have succeeded in emulating the previous generations from 2004, 2008, 2014, 2016 and 2018.

Malaysia have now qualified for six editions of the tournament since it was inaugurated as the Asian Under-17 Championship in 1985, which kicked off with the qualifiers a year before.

The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) at that time attached little importance to age-group tournaments, so much so that according to a survey by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1985, Malaysia were among the Asean countries found to be lagging behind their Middle and Far East counterparts.

The FAM, through the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM), did not dispatch a team to the qualifiers in 1984 but did so two years later with a squad that featured stocky midfielder Fauzi Bidin, nicknamed Maradona by Australian fans after a trip to Perth, and St John’s Institution (SJI) forward, David Hung.

Malaysia had to wait until 2004 to make their maiden appearance at the Asian tourney, relying on the best players based at the Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS) and Tunku Mahkota Ismail Sports School (SSTMI) to board the plane to Japan.

Brazilian coach, Joao Paolo Nizzo, assisted by Razip Ismail, was able to pick Khairul Fahmi Che Mat, Asraruddin Putra Omar and Bunyamin Umar – all of whom went on to become full-fledged internationals – to form the core of the team.

By the time Lim Kim Chon took his charges to Uzbekistan in 2008, Gary Steven Robbat, Fandi Othman and D. Saarvindran were the outstanding talents.

After missing out on the finals in 2010 and 2012, the class of 2014 helmed by S. Balachandran came within a whisker of advancing to the FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

A team that boasted R. Kogileswaran, R. Dinesh and Haziq Nadzli narrowly lost 2-1 to Australia in the quarter-finals.

For the 2016 edition in India, coach P. Somasundram discovered his boys lacked the capacity to perform on the bigger stage.

So when Malaysia was picked to host the 2018 edition, expectations ran high as the nation waited with bated breath for the National Football Development Programme (NFDP)’s first generation to produce the desired outcome. Unfortunately, even with the talent of Luqman Hakim Shamsuddin at his disposal, NFDP director Lim Teong Kim could not take the team beyond the group stages.

It is significant to note that the team of 2022 coached by Osmera Omaro and managed by Christopher Raj are the first batch of NFDP products to qualify for the Asian tourney.

Credit is also due to the small group of foreign and local coaches who have been harnessing these talents behind the scenes.

Dutchman Dennis Bekking has left his job as the head of AMD to accept a new challenge as the FA of Selangor (FAS) technical director, while Saad Ichalelene, who was made NFDP technical director in late 2019, is looking for a new job.

As many as seven players under his care at PSG between 2011 and 2016 could feature in the FIFA World Cup next month, such as Presnel Kimpembe, Christopher Nkunku, Kingsley Coman, Matteo Guendouzi, Adrien Rabiot, Alphonse Areola and Timothy Weah, but Ichalenene, who first pitched his tent in Kuala Lumpur in 2016 as the NFDP head of training methodology and talent scout, has been marked surplus to requirements by the National Sports Council (NSC).

Nonetheless, Osmera’s boys will turn 24 by the year 2030, when the FIFA World Cup shall feature 48 teams. Combine Muhammad Afiq Danish, Anjasmirza Saharudin and Arami Wafiy Zakimi with the older generation of NFDP talents, the dream of an entire nation could well be fulfilled.