Juniors' journey of shame

13/10/2001

By Jugjet Singh in Hobart

HOBART: From aspiring to be among the best in the Junior World Cup before
they set out on their journey to Tasmania, Malaysia now have been dumped
with the dubious option of aspiring to be the best among the rest.
With a top eight finish out of the question now, Malaysia will have to
look at the 9-16 places reserved for mediocre and below average teams.
And only the Juniors and their coach Yahya Atan can determine which of
these two categories they want to belong to. Given the options, being
mediocre might help lessen some of the flak that's awaiting them.
Their mediocre journey in the tournament begins today against Germany
when they wrap up their Group D fixtures in what will be a face-saving
match after a disastrous campaign.
After losing 3-2 to New Zealand and being whipped 5-0 by Argentina, the
match against Germany will not have any bearing except to decide whether
Germany or New Zealand top the group.
For Malaysia, their job is to stop Germany and the rest from here from
wiping their boots all over them after they had spread out the "Welcome
mat" against Argentina on Thursday.
Now they face the ignominy of having to play in the classification
matches at the second pitch which gets waterlogged even if it rains for
five minutes.
Yesterday, there was a steady cold shower throughout the day and the
second pitch could not even be used for warm-up.
After the Argentine whipping, Yahya and goalkeeper coach Zulkifli Abbas
gave the boys hell at the Valley Lodge Motel and are expecting them to
give their best today.
Paul Lissek, the seniors coach, reached Hobart early yesterday morning
to give a helping hand to lift the team's spirits. But since he did not
watch their earlier matches, he was in no position to comment on how they
fared.
But he will be going through the videotapes the night before the match
and "knock some sense into their game".
"I asked the boys what went wrong and why did they play like they did
not know the game at all, and they said they were lost without a leader to
call the shots and set the tempo of the match," said Yahya.
It looks like skipper Chua Boon Huat's absence was sorely felt and S.
Shanker, who wore the skipper's armband in the match against Argentina,
could not rally the boys behind him.
In fact, Shanker who plays as a right fullback, did the most number of
mistakes and was responsible for allowing in three easy goals.
Chua has served his sentence for abusing the match umpire when playing
against New Zealand and will be back in action against the Germans today
and if the boys play well or hold the Germans to a draw, it looks like the
Malaysian Juniors are a one-man team.
If that's true, this is not good for the future of the junior side
because when Chua, 21, makes the senior squad in a few months time, the
Juniors will be crippled without a backbone.
For the Germans, it will be more like a warm-up match and they might
field their reserves in the second half because they have already made the
second round, which might be good news for Malaysia but makes no
difference to their campaign.
"We are now focusing, on the ninth spot right now, and hopefully the
players forget the past and play like they did during the tours and
friendlies that we had over the year."
The local paper, The Mercury, again headlined the Malaysian malady in
their sports pages today. It was a hard hitting article which criticised
our national team for faring badly after spending close to RM2 million
ringgit and training for more than a year.
True, they were were provided with everything, but at the end of the day
they will have to fight their own war. And this team has so far shown that
it doesn't have that `scrotal gumption' for it. Junior World Cup Hockey Results
Group A
Ireland ..... 4 Chile ....... 1
England ..... 0 Australia ... 0
Group C
Scotland .... 3 Canada ...... 1
India ....... 3 Spain ....... 0
jugjet@nstp.com.my
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