KUALA LUMPUR: The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) takes full responsibility for the national team's failure in the Under-23 Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar.
FAM's Technical Director, Scott O'Donell, said several factors have been identified as the reason for the Young Tigers' dismal campaign, where they lost all three matches to Uzbekistan 2-0, Vietnam 2-0 and Kuwait 2-1.
The Australian pointed out that the lack of match fitness was the main reason behind the team's failure to make a mark at the elite level.
"The main issue with this squad is the lack of playing time or the number of matches that each of the players had. If we look at the statistics, not many players in this squad got playing minutes with their respective clubs in the previous Super League season... only four players did," said O'Donell.
"The goalkeeper Sikh Izhan Nazrel had 2,250 minutes with Negri Sembilan, Mukhairi Ajmal had 1,684 minutes with Selangor, T. Saravanan had 1,252 minutes with KL City, and Safwan Mazlan had 1,063 minutes with Terengganu.
"The rest of the players had fewer playing minutes in the 2023 Super League."
The lack of playing minutes, coupled with the lengthy break in the M-League, made the players' match fitness worse.
"All three teams in Group D, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Kuwait, have been actively participating in their domestic leagues. As a comparison, we can see that their players were at their best match fitness-level throughout the Asian Cup," said O'Donell.
"While only assembled on March 17, some of the players were with the senior squad and some others only joined a week later.
"In addition to that, most of the clubs had yet to start their preseason training for the Super League, resulting in the players who came to the centralized training camp being at a relatively low level of match fitness."
O'Donell hoped that in future, the national Under-23 team could utilize the Fifa international windows more effectively.
He added that he and Garrido will prepare a comprehensive report to be presented to FAM's national team management committee.
"We need to provide the team with more international exposure to play as a team against other national Under-23 teams, and not just tournaments such as the Sea Games or AFC competitions.
"Even if we can't arrange international Under-23 friendly matches, we can at least organise training camps to give coaches more opportunities to work closely with players during each Fifa international window.
"We must accept the fact that we won't always be able to use the best players for the national Under-23 squad, so we need to further develop the number of Under-23 players eligible to join the national youth squad."
