Changes in store for national under-23 squad - FAM president
KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 (Bernama) -- The national under-23 (U-23) squad will be revamped as part of efforts to strengthen the national team coached by Kim Pan Gon, said Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) president Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin.
He said the proposed changes would be discussed at a meeting scheduled for next month, to ensure that the young national team moved in line with the direction of the senior squad.
“If we cannot directly change the Malaysian football ecosystem, we have to change from the U-23 squad, and I wish to state that the U-23 squad will see a revamp,” he said when met here recently.
Hamidin said these changes would incur expenses, including from the aspect of expertise of the technical and coaching line-up.
There have been rumours linking Pan Gon’s assistant Pau Marti Vicente, a former assistant coach at European giants FC Barcelona, to the post of U-23 head coach currently held by Brad Maloney.
After an excellent campaign in the U-23 Asian Cup qualifiers last year, Maloney’s team turned out to be a disappointment in the three tournaments they have played in this year, starting with the AFF U-23 championship in Cambodia last February.
At the 31st SEA Games in Hanoi, Vietnam last month, the U-23 squad returned empty-handed after losing to Indonesia in the bronze medal playoff match,
Then recently, the Harimau Muda squad flopped in Group C of the U-23 Asian Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, losing to South Korea 1-4, Thailand (0-3) and Vietnam 0-2.
-- BERNAMA
