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Malaysia legend Azman Adnan takes swipe at national team critics
The former Malaysia striker reminds critics that the national team is on an upward trajectory and all efforts should be made to support, not condemn.
In his pomp, Azman was one of the most feared strikers in the region and with him in the side, Malaysia were able to achieve a historic high of 75th spot in the FIFA rankings back in 1993.
Over the years since, there has been a gradual degradation with the quality of the national team that has seen the Harimau Malaya slipped all the way down to 178th spot.
Yet, Azman firmly believes that the current crop are on the right track having progressed to the final of the AFF Championship back in 2018 and are in a great position in the World Cup qualification campaign.
Speaking to Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), Azman took the opportunity to offer a rebuttal to Kelantan FC owner Norizam Turkiman who slammed FAM for a poor national team standing in recent times.
"It is better not to divert the topic to another matter like the national team when the dispute is between two bodies or with the governing body.
"One only need to prove themselves by taking their team or club to be champions first and produce good players for Malaysia, in essence take care of things within your responsibilities.
"What is important is that over the last two to three years, the national team's ranking has gone up from 178 to 153 in a short period of time.
"All of which I believe is a satisfactory effort and if everyone pull in the same direction, we can rise up even further," said Azman to FAM.
Under Tan Cheng Hoe and with a good batch of players to choose from, Malaysia has proven that they can overome Southeast Asian superpower Thailand and even caused United Arab Emirates a big scare in recent matches.
With the majority of the core players at the right age bracket, there's reason to be optimistic over the national team again, far removed from the suggestion provided by Norizam.
