World Cup
2007-10-21 - Bahrain vs Malaysia
A Sports Betting Pick by Romerz
21 October 2007 – 6.00pm (local time)
National Stadium, Manama
Bahrain v Malaysia
In Asia, the fight for the 4 places to World Cup 2010 in South Africa began on 8 October 2007.
Now comes the turn of world ranked 98, Bahrain, and world ranked 159, Malaysia, to commence their respective campaigns with the 1st leg of this 2 legged tie on 21 October in Manama. The return leg will be held 7 days later in Kuala Lumpur.
Bahrain
Bahrain’s last competitive outing was in the Asian Cup 2007 held in July of this year. They did not make it out of the group stage when they finished last in a group comprising heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Korea Republic and hosts Indonesia.
They did however stun Korea Republic by beating them 2-1 in their 2nd group match but unfortunately for them, Bahrain’s fate was already sealed when they lost 1-2 to a fired-up Indonesia in the 1st group match. Bahrain was soundly beaten by Saudi Arabia 4-0 in the last group match.
Let us look back at Bahrain’s match with Indonesia since Indonesia is considered Malaysia’s peer in the region. In this match where Bahrain lost 1-2, they did so despite controlling large portions of the match and squandering many clear-cut scoring chances and finally getting undone by Indonesia’s speedy counter attacks. Since Bahrain’s exit from the Asian Cup, striker Hussain Ali and midfielder Talal Yusuf retired from international football. However striker Ala’a Hubail is still with the team.
I mentioned Ala’a Hubail for a reason. Even though he had a poor Asian Cup 2007, he was the leading joint top scorer in Asian Cup 2004. From news reports I’ve read, he has apparently found back his old form and is terrorizing opponent’s defense in Bahrain’s warm-up friendly matches. Another player that was mentioned was Nigerian-born forward Jaycee John Akwani, who bagged a hat-trick in the team’s 3-1 win over Singapore, another of Malaysia’s peer, in a friendly match in Manama last week.
Since the Asian Cup exit in July, Bahrain has played 3 international friendlies as follows –
16 Oct 07 – Bahrain 2-0 Libya (world ranking 92)
5 Oct 07 – Bahrain 3-1 Singapore (world ranking 138)
7 Sep 07 – Bahrain 1-3 Jordan (world ranking 99)
Malaysia
Malaysia had a disaster of an Asian Cup 2007 where they were soundly beaten in all their 3 group matches, 1-5 to china, 0-5 to Uzbekistan and 0-2 to Iran, despite having home advantage. Immediately after this debacle, major upheavals occurred within the FA of Malaysia, with the deputy president and secretary-general resigning and the chief coach sacked.
A lot was promised to overhaul the pitiful state of Malaysian football but in reality, nothing much has changed. The majority of the management and administrators are still there. The new national chief coach, B Sathinathan, previously the coach for the U-23 team, was promoted from within and it was resolved that more exposure would be given to the U-23 team to represent the country. It is this U-23 team together with 3 senior players from the Asian cup debacle that will be fielded for this match.
Roughly a month after the Asian Cup, Malaysia hosted an “Independence Celebrations” tournament called the Merdeka Tournament. The U-23 team represented Malaysia and did rather well, coming 1st amongst others like Myanmar, Singapore, Lesotho & Laos.
On the basis of this performance, it was decided that this U-23 team will be groomed to be the national team and a program to expose them began. They were sent on a friendly tour of Australia and played some local club sides with the following results –
2 Oct 07 – Perth SC 3-1 Malaysia
5 Oct 07 – FC Ashfield 0-0 Malaysia
9 Oct 07 – Floreat Athena 1-2 Malaysia
The team will leave for Manama today and at the pre-departure press conference, it seems that both the FA deputy president and chief coach were preparing the Malaysian public for the worst by the tone of the language used. The chief coach talked about “containment of Bahrain’s forwards” and the defense facing a “stiff test” but the telling statement is “Ultimately, this team is being prepared for the SEA Games and I believe that new young players like defender Chun (Ken Hong) will be ready in time for Thailand.” The deputy president said that all preparations are done now and whatever happens, this will be the future national team. They have already resigned to the probable outcome!!!
There are no big names in the Malaysian team except for K. Nanthakumar, Indra Putra Mahayuddin, Norhafiz Zamani Misbah. Indra Putra scored Malaysia’s solitary goal in the Asian Cup whilst Nathakumar and Norhafiz were part of the defense that let in all those 12 goals. Looking at the squad list, I can recognize 2 or 3 names but they only play a secondary role in their respective local club sides.
Analysis
Bahrain is playing on home soil and will definitely want to have a few goals cushion before the 2nd leg match on 28 Oct in Kuala Lumpur. Their early exit from the Asian Cup is by no means an indicator of their capabilities and they have achieved results against some ‘strong’ opposition since then. I have no team news but I’m assuming that the Bahrain we will see on 21 Oct will be pretty much the same one we saw in the Asian Cup. They prepared for this qualifier by playing against national sides and teams that are supposed to be on par with them.
Malaysia on the other hand played against some club sides and achieved mediocre results as preparation for what could be considered a major international. Do not read too much into the success achieved at the Merdeka Tournament as it was a friendly tournament for the host’s independence celebrations and some of the teams did not send their strongest available.
In short this Malaysian team has not been tested yet in an international arena against superior opposition. My personal opinion is that they have been elevated to take on an enormous responsibility which should be at least a few years down the road, in short, asking boys to do men’s job.
Verdict
Everything points to a Bahrain victory and it might even be a comfortable one at that. Unfortunately as always.
