No time to rest: Endrick dos Santos (right) walking with Afiq Fazail ahead of their training session at Wisma FAM. — FAM
PETALING JAYA: Forward Endrick dos Santos may not have enough minutes but believes he is ready to make it a memorable time with the national squad in the Merdeka Tournament.
The 29-year-old naturalised Brazillian is the first Malaysian to play in the Vietnamese Top Division (V-League) but the league will only start on Sept 13.
The naturalised Brazilian also did not have much opportunity to play with the Southern Tigers before leaving to play for Ho Chi Minh City.
A player of his calibre and creativity may need the minutes to further sharpen his skills and gel well with his teammates but Dos Santos is just fine with the preparation.
In fact, he said two friendly matches with his new club was enough to serve as a “warm-up” before the big match against the Philippines on Thursday at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
In the second friendly game with Ho Chi Minh, Dos Santos was even made captain and he duly repaid the faith of coach Phung Thanh Phuong by scoring two goals against Quy Nhon last week.
“The lack of competitive game time will not impact the way I play. I have had minutes in the bag and the friendly matches were of high quality. To me, the standard in the V-League is pretty high and it can be seen even during pre-season,” said Dos Santos, who used to play for sides like Penang, Felcra United and Selangor in the past.
“Even when I was in JDT, the training intensity was pretty good. So I am not worried. If given the chance by coach Pau (Marti Vicente), I will execute his plans accordingly.”
Only four nations compete in the Merdeka Tournament. The other two teams in the fray are defending champions Tajikistan and Lebanon.
Dos Santos, who has been attending centralised camp since Aug 28, believes the squad are capable of lifting the title.
“We have a new coach but I believe he has similar ideas to our previous coach (Kim Pan-gon). I have worked with Pau for a while, so combination-wise, there won’t be any weird feelings because we know how he is with the players.
“Our mentality is to always win, so we want to beat the Philippines to ensure we have a shot at the title.
“We have other key players like Darren (Lok) and Syafiq (Ahmad), so we are capable of doing a good job.
“But we are also hopeful that the fans will come to the stadium to support us. A packed National Stadium will give us the boost to work harder.”
