This week I believe was a devastating week for Azraai Khor and his team, Malaysia U21 a.k.a Harimau Muda A. Lot of drama happens since Azraai took over the new team which originally comes from Malaysia U19 squad who won Malaysia Premier League 2009. They suppose to play in Malaysia Super League in 2010, but FAM have rules out Harimau Muda place in the league and since them they suffer a lot.


They tried applying for a place Singapore League since they need more competitive matches, but their application was rejected by Singapore League committee due to ‘technical reason’ which is not disclosed by them. To make thing worst, Sports Ministry try to act handsome by saying they want to send this player overseas and keep talking about sending them to England. But this ideas did not made Azraai and his team happy since they know his players will only have a short stint overseas without any competitive match. Just look on what did Asraruddin Putra gain in two weeks training with PSV. That did not help him to be a better player.


Plus, for players age more than 20, it kind of late to be send to overseas. If FAM and KBS really wanted to help nurture our talents, they should send kids when they was 12 to 15 years old. Or maybe 16 to 18 years old like what Akmal Rizal, Juzaili Sameon and Fadzli Shaari experienced during their teenagers age.


This ad hoc ideas is far from becoming reality. I hope FAM and KBS will scrape this ideas and back to the drawing board. We should take Everton offer that willing to help us in setting up academies instead of hoping to send our Harimau Muda boys to England. There is no short cut in gaining success and we should start for our grassroots development.


Let’s take Bukit Jalil Sport School (BJSS) as example. Most of our young national players come from this school. Why not we expand BJSS concept to whole Malaysia. I know we have Bandar Penawar Sport School in south region. And we should build at least one sport school in central north in Penang or Kedah, another one in the East (may be Terengganu) and each one in Sabah and Sarawak. So the more Sport School we have, the more pool of talented boy that we have. Imagine having at least 20 to 30 players from each of the sport school every year, it might give Ong Kim Swee selection headache for Malaysia U19 squad.


If we want to make thing better, work with those guy who set up Football Academy in England, Holland, Spain or Italy and learn how to run football academy. Plus send more ex-footballers who pursuing their career in coaching and help them be better coach from training and exposure. For the moment, at least put Harimau Muda A back to Super League and help this boy to get more competitive games. Or Azraai can loan his boys to any state or club team for this season campaign. This boys need more exposure.