The years 2009 and 2010 hold much for Malaysian football history – winning the “Mother of all Golds” in the 2009 Laos Sea Games after a 20-year absence and their first ever AFF Suzuki Cup a year later.
The two titles was a shot in the arm for Malaysian football and the game came “alive” in the country where it is the number one sport.
Datuk Subahan Kamal was the assistant manager at the Laos Sea Games while Datuk Redzuan Sheikh Ahmad was the team manager. Subahan, however, was the manager of the Suzuki Cup team.
(Datuk) K. Rajagobal was the chief coach with Tan Cheng Hoe as his assistant for both tournaments.
Winning the Sea Games gold – with a 1-0 win over Vietnam in the final – paved the way for faith in the youngsters with a bulk of them promoted to the senior team for the AFF Suzuki Cup campaign.
With Rajagobal, Cheng Hoe and Subahan at the helm the “transitions” for the Under-23 players from the Sea Games team to the senior team for Malaysia’s Suzuki Cup campaign was rather smooth.
Malaysia’s previous best in the premier Asean tournament before 2010 was finishing runners-up to Thailand in Singapore in 1996 under coach Wan Jamak Wan Hassan.
For Subahan, a former lawmaker, the process of “rebuilding” the national team laid in the young players and it played a significant role in winning the Suzuki Cup. The faith in youngsters aged 19 and 20 years paid dividends.
The two titles in two years brought Malaysian football “alive” and Malaysia’s rise in the game in the region. Subahan and company became household names in the country.
Malaysia is drawn in Group A and have Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and, Myanmar for the company in this year’s AFF Suzuki Cup. – BY RIZAL ABDULLAH
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