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Football: Women Football Squad Needs More International Exposure

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 (Bernama) -- The national women's football squad needs more exposure at the international level if it wishes to compete with the Asean football powers such as Thailand and Myanmar.

The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) as a parent body for national football must also play a more pro-active role by arranging more friendly matches with foreign teams to ensure the national women's football team is on par with them.

The poor start of the squad had been taking place since so long but the most obvious was at the SEA Games in 2009 when it lost all its matches including a 0-14 humiliation by Thailand.

This forced the Women Football Committee chairman and FAM deputy president at that time, Khairy Jamaluddin, to ban the squad from taking part in any championship except for friendly matches for a year.

Starting last year, the squad was placed under the Women Football Committee headed by FAM deputy president Tan Sri Annuar Musa.

In line with this, the old national women football squad was disbanded and a new team was formed under coach Jacob Joseph to give a fresh impetus to the squad.

The squad which mostly comprises football and futsal players showed a good start by beating Singapore 2-0 in a friendly match at Stadium Jalan Besar, Singapore on Sept 24.

But the performance did not last at the AFF Woman Cup Fourth Edition currently taking place in Laos when they recorded poor results, namely, two losses and one draw, denying them a place in the semi-final.

In the third participation, the national women football squad was embarrassed by two-time champion Thailand 1-8 in the opening match on Oct 17 and thrashed by Myanmar 0-8 on Oct 19 before tying the Philippines 2-2.

The national women football squad's best performance was when it secured fourth place at the same championship in Myanmar in 2007 but even that, their quality of play was far from those shown by Thailand and Myanmar.

National women's football squad manager Tunku Ellie Badariah Tunku Ahmad, however, admitted the performance of the squad was heartening despite the losses to the Asean region football super powers.

"The newly-formed women football squad has shown improvement and I admit it is not easy for our team to beat Thailand and Myanmar.

"I am confident if they are given more exposure at a higher level, it is not impossible for them to perform well in the future," she told Bernama today.

She also admitted that the abolition of several local championships by FAM such as the Tunku Dara Naquiah Cup and the Sharifah Rodziah Cup had an adverse effect on the development of national women's football.

"FAM must at least think of other suitable local championships to ensure we can produce more talented players, that is if it does not want to revive these championships," she said.

As such, FAM must strike a balance in developing the national football, whether men's or women's football, to ensure the country is not left far behind the world football powers.

-- BERNAMA

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