THE Malaysian juniors left for New Delhi Sunday, with the airlines carrying special cargo in two-time Junior World Cup player Kavin Kartik (pic).
The cargo is overweight, but worth every ounce on the artificial pitch, as portly Kevin’s passes are accurate, and deadly to open wide the opponents back-line.
He is only the second Malaysian to play in the Under-21 tournament which will be held from Dec 6-15.
The first Malaysian was M. Davendran who played in Vancouver in 1985, and Ipoh in 1989.
“It was a wonderful experience for me, as I was only 17 when I was selected to play in the Malaysia-Singapore joint World Cup.
“The coach back then was K. Rajan, and I played against England, Spain, Egypt and Poland; and it was not an easy feat to finish 12th among 20 teams.
“But after the tournament, I put on too much of weight and was almost sidelined from the training pool, but I fought back, lost some weight and an proud to represent country again,” said Kavin, who hails from Tampin, Negri Sem bilan.
Tampin, even back in the ‘dark ages’ of 1975, had produced a gem in N. Palanisamy who helped Malaysia finish fourth in the senior World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.
And present No 1 senior goalkeeper S. Kumar also hails from Tampin, and to name one of the other famous son is Dr Bryan Jeyhan Siva.
“No doubt, I would prefer Kevin to lose more weight, but his body has not responded to all the vigorous training that I have put him under for the last one year.
“He is not lazy, and took the challenge to lose weight by following the training schedule religiously, but his body structure is such that it became almost an impossible task even to lose a few kilos.
“But even with his present structure, he is my first choice because he is a strong defender, and also makes accurate passes, which tears apart the opponents defense,” said coach K. Dharmaraj.
Malaysia went early to acclimatise, and also play a friendly against one of the tournament Germany on Tuesday, before opening their Junior World Cup accounts against New Zealand on Dec 6, followed by South Africa (Dec 8) and England (Dec 9).
