Malaysia's Chua Boon Huat (right) is congratulated by his teammate for his goal against China in their 3rd-4th placed match of the Asia Cup in Kuantan on Saturday. — APpicBy Ajitpal Singh
(Review of Asia Cup)
'KUALA Lumpur and Australia have been shortlisted as Plan B to host next year's World Cup to replace New Delhi.
Apparently, some countries have threatened to withdraw if the World Cup is hosted in New Delhi because of security reasons.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has been in constant contact with MHF regarding this but the local body should decline the offer as Malaysia should not aim to compete in the World Cup via the backdoor but instead qualify on merit. '
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IF Malaysia's performance in the 8th AirAsia Men's Asia Cup is anything to go by, the game is on the right track in the country but some fine tuning is needed to ensure the team make further progress.
Interim national coach Tai Beng Hai has done a splendid job of turning the team's fortunes around in just four-and-half months for the tournament.
Many believed Malaysia would lose to South Korea and Japan in the group stage and thus fail to achieve the Malaysian Hockey Federation's (MHF) semi-final target but the players proved their critics wrong.
Malaysia held Korea 1-1 and slammed Japan 4-1 -- both higher ranked teams -- to qualify for the semi-finals.
Both defeats exposed several of the team's weaknesses, though not major ones. The players must learn to maximise the use of their talents, and do so wisely, to penetrate their opponents' half.
It was evident in Kuantan that they lacked variety in creative passing during interchanges from defence to midfield to attack.
This must be rectified soon. Probably, Beng Hai wants his players to put more flair into their game but in the modern game too much of it will not be effective. Just look at Germany.
They may play boring hockey but it's effective and good enough to win world and Olympic titles.
However, the best system may not necessarily work for Malaysia and Beng Hai, after seeing the way his boys play, is surely trying to introduce a more offensive mindset to the team.
To be honest, Malaysia, if they had more time to prepare, could have done far better in Kuantan. However, time was not on Beng Hai's side when he was given the task to handle the national senior team on Jan 5.
For this, the MHF must be blamed as it took too long to find a replacement for Sarjit Singh, who was removed as national coach, last October.
MHF was too busy looking for a world class coach while not realising that the national seniors were losing precious time.
If Beng Hai was appointed sooner, results in the Asia Cup may have been different.
As for Beng Hai, who has met MHF's targets so far, he should be offered a fulltime contract to prepare the team for upcoming tournaments.
However, the fickle-mindedness of MHF is legendry and it might make a U-turn on its decision.
Malaysia's next assignment is the Champions Challenge II in Dublin in July where a good result is vital to boost the team's confidence ahead of November's World Cup Qualifiers.
The grapevine has it that Beng Hai is planning to recruit a few under-21 players after next month's Junior World Cup for senior team training to beef-up the squad. This is also to give deserving juniors the exposure and experience to fill gaps when seniors retire.
Meanwhile, Kuala Lumpur and Australia have been shortlisted as Plan B to host next year's World Cup to replace New Delhi.
Apparently, some countries have threatened to withdraw if the World Cup is hosted in New Delhi because of security reasons.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has been in constant contact with MHF regarding this but the local body should decline the offer as Malaysia should not aim to compete in the World Cup via the backdoor but instead qualify on merit.
