cant post the whole article, so i just provide the link instead

an interview with him

http://faliqfirdaus.blogspot.com/2011/05/s...-chan.html#more

Reminds me of when Gaddafi's son joined Perugia, who signed him 'willingly'.

Don't know much about this Datuk Chan, but a lot of people know about his partner in crime.

a Kelantan player who supports Liverpool... I hope he'll be a great player.

Heard that Kelantan received 1mil sponsorship from Datuk Chan. is it true?

some source said only 100k. but still who want to give 100k for local football easily these days

nice article

lul i played with him back at KLYS

was he any good?

Memang menarik interview tu, casual. Tapi sapa yang kendalikan interview tu?

Lain kali boleh tak interview Razali Bin Umar Kandasamy?

Btw dari blog tersebut, tak sangka Piala Presiden tahun lepas ada rasuah di antara perlawanan T-Team dengan KL.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/55224-more...y-matches-money

They received about that amount from 'Happy Prepaid'.

you are a leftback right....so meaning you played alongside him. He good coz he came from cardiff city reserve?

at the time he played for westham.


This post has been edited by liez: May 3 2011, 11:01 AM

is he any good? better than our national player?

the fact that he is in the Kelantan reserves tell us that he is at least not better than our natioanal player.... age should not be a factor as one 19 year old kelantan president cup winger is breaking through the first team already..

how should i say?

he is good, but not really that that good. ( else he would have stayed at England, obviously ) He is a quite a strong player cause he always go to gym.

he didnt mention he went for trials with the harimau muda before he went to Australia and he didnt make it.

btw he played as a defender at KLYS, ( since Bojan was the coach ), i didnt know how he became a mdifield.

I dont want to go personal on him cause i am not really a big fan of this player.

This post has been edited by FLampard: May 3 2011, 01:06 PM

The fact that he's been involved in some unsuccessful trials proves he's probably just local football material if at all. The only reason he got those trials in the first place ahead of other Malaysian youngsters who are arguably more talented is because of his father lah.

sure thing, ill try to contact Razali Umar Kandasamy.

pasal rasuah tu, i did some co op with Haresh Deol from MalayMail, and yes it is still happening this year, especially with the lower ranked teams. bu still, no concrete proofs.

---

Added on May 3, 2011, 2:10 pmyup, he said to me bout the harimau muda trials(during azraai khor's tenure if im not mistaken). and he said what really happened during the selection(i asked some other HM players, and the answer was the same as Nick's). but cant be published, as he said that he was afraid of being 'slaughtered' by the football governing body. lol. he's a good player actually, based on some games, otherwise, coach sathia wouldnt be interested in him.

bout his transfer to kelantan, according to sathia's intitial plan, he was supposed to play for super league matches as sathia intented to groom Nick for the olympics, but when M.Karathu took over the team, things have changed a lot, and MalayMail once reported of M.Karathu's being old-school-ish for not trusting youngsters. it's all back to favouritism in choosing some players.

actually, he fared well during his stint with Cardiff City, and was offered a place. based on some infos, Datuk TG knew about Cardiff City just when Nick applied for a trials there. with TG and Vincent's move were on cards, Nick decided not to stay there as he said earlier that he's a man of principle.

This post has been edited by falick_ballack: May 3 2011, 02:22 PM

i heard some kelantan players oso not happy with karathu old style approach..

I dont understand how is he being "slaughtered" by governing body, or maybe because i am not familiar with local football internal affair.

The reason that i know why he had a hard time is because he cant blend into the team. Thats what happens when you send your kids to international school. I played with him at KLYS for years and we hardly had a conversation outside the pitch because he looked down at people that are more malaysian-based ( well thats what i feel ). He has so many international - based friends he hardly can mixed with people that are local based.

One of those typical, "you know who my father or not?" type punks eh? Like I said earlier, the only reason he got those trials was because of his father. If he were really talented, we wouldn't only be reading about him now. Titus was already in the papers when he was what? 13? Another reason I hope Cardiff don't get promoted.

you are talking about the trials for Cardiff and Westham

actually the trials for HM and Australia was from our headcoach Luis Pablo Pozzuto. And thats also how he got into the Kelantan Team. Note that Luis was an ex-kelantan player. With this relationship, its easy.

hoped. cardiff has been promoted, no?

Cardiff automatic promotion spot got nick away by Norwich. They have to fight through play-off. =/

Oops, my bad.

kinda agree with you

This post has been edited by falick_ballack: May 3 2011, 06:07 PM

When I first heard of him, I read a couple of articles in local English papers (online) giving him a short mention from youth coaches in some of the teams he was affiliated with, so I thought he was at least lower league material.

Vaguely recall him saying that he would not mind playing in the English lower leagues, as long as he got to play in England. Guess that didn't necessarily pan out.

While you guys might be panning him a bit, remember that at the very least, he had the initiative to go and trial with teams abroad. Very few Malaysian players have such initiative.

Or opportunity

There was that interview with the Malaysian dude coaching Bayern Munchen's youth who mentioned how the guys FAM sent were lackadaisical and simply wanted out when they stayed over at his place in Germany. He commented about how many of them simply had too little drive.

Guys like Liew Kim Tu break the mould of course.

My point is, people like FAM do try and another bother is that a lot of aspiring footballers I know can't think beyond England (which have strict policies on youths from abroad under 16). Tell them that they'll have a better chance with the highly open Belgian, Dutch or German systems and they simply shrug. Drive and initiatitive, sorely lacking.

But this is a general Malaysian problem, not isolated to football.

P.S. There are actually lower league teams in the Netherlands that have handed out trials to kids who send in videos etc. The average middle class kid in Malaysia, if driven enough, can really afford to try these out.

This post has been edited by minority: May 3 2011, 07:43 PM

agree more on opportunity, it need alot of money just to go trial there n stay there for quite some time. u cant do it based on talent alone. if not alot of Brazilians already do that.

and i think...in my opinion we are still early to break into EPL team...d quality is hugely different.

but step by step, i see alot of good improvement in malaysian football, im quiet happy with that. and kudos to nicholas for his effort, titus james and few others. hope all d newcomers with get the exposure as well. long live malaysian football!

Brazil is different. Kids there grow up supporting their clubs heavily and trial there. They can try to go to Europe, but the thing is they don't want to, because staying local is better when young.

The average Malaysian kid is more well off than a Brazilian kid as well.

If our kids work hard enough, at least a few would be able to go to Europe and try out. But the fact is we barely have one! That's more down to a lack of drive.

i still believe cost is a big factor as well. its simply 2 expensive.

another thing, how many parents in msia support their sons to be a footballer? according to them, the future is bleak and they rather their sons study and be a doc,engineer or a lawyer instead.

definitely agree with you, but i hope things will change as, KBS stated that 2011/2012 is the start of sporting industry

Thats why minority mentioned middle class above. Sure lower class family won't be able to afford even an air ticket to Switz, Netherlands, Belgian or any other Europe countries but I am sure middle class ones can do it. accommodation and foods may be provided by the club too. I know a family who sent her daughter all over the world to compete in violin and piano competition and they were at least RM6000 per trip and her dad is just an english tuition teacher. minority is right, if you have the drive, together with opportunity... you may get the offers for trial from lower league teams if they were impressed by the video footage and cv you sent to them.

my dad fucuk me in the backside to even think about that.

You are referring to Lim Teong Kim. It was disappointing to find out that not many Malaysians knew what he achieved abroad until the recent youth tournament here. I remember reading about the comments you've posted.

I'm not sure that the hesitancy to be attached to an English club is purely down to a lack of drive. Could also be a lack of awareness. Kids these days grow up heavily exposed to English football and English football alone. Heavy marketing in this region has resulted in the perception that the Premiership is the biggest and most lucrative league in the world. Well we know at the very least that the latter isn't necessarily true given lower taxes elsewhere. Perhaps not many are aware that youth academies at clubs like Ajax and Bayern Munich are world renowned, on par and even better than their English counterparts. Also, English teams are more active in the region when it comes to scouring for talent. Clubs like Spurs, Hull, and West Ham are actively sourcing for young talent in the East.

Not saying it's the only reason, but it is part of it. I find it hard to believe there isn't at least one other Titus around. I do concede however that for one Titus, there are many more Akmal Rizal's who gets homesick and misses the food.

Indeed, not that I'm isolating a single cause to rule them all. Costs and the general lack of knowledge of academies in Europe do form a considerable barrier, but it's just as you say, why are there so few Malaysians even trying it out? Obviously, we won't achieve the thousands of players there are in European academies, but at least you'd want to see a few players every year having a go.

Another factor would definitely be what spikyz said of course, kids here are pushed to be doctors, engineers or lawyers (nowadays accountants and actuaries as well).

But the problem with drive means that we don't quite have enough people willing to sacrifice all and take risks. We are a fundamentally low-risk society as it were. One would think that a high drive would foster a high awareness. The initiative-takers of the world network and get info and ask questions. If you still remain limited in your awareness of a subject of which information is readily available then it comes down to your drive to uncover the details.

In truth, even if you don't aim for the renown academies, you still have non-top-tier teams who do look for players abroad. The English have rules for players under 16 (cannot live more than 90 minutes from the club), but Germany and the Netherlands have the most open clubs of all. That's why the first Japanese/Koreans/Singaporeans/Iranians/Malaysians all went there and it's down to the kids (and their families) to drive towards those goals.

Things might change though. The football mad and middle class guys of this generation might know more about these things and be more willing to send their kids around to the right places (like liez's example of violin competitions). Even Safee Sali's move to Indonesia should be lauded for a spirit of adventure to chase a higher level of football.

i wish u r my father.

it was a game of numbers also. every year there are around 1000 brazilian kids venture abroad to sell their talent at a ridiculously young age. around 700 return home within a year becoming worse player than they set out to be. Possebom of manchester united was one of them.. from these sacrifices that you get the da silvas, falcao, deco and all...

for us to hope to be succesfull with by just sending around 10 players, we need to be exceptionally efficiant with our support to the players. if we expect to produce a gem by just sending young man to fend for themselve in faraway land without any support system at all, then we need to send thousands of them to produce one gem..

these kid primary skill are just physical ability that not really helpful as lifestyle tool as oppose to intelectual intelligence of overseas students.

i think the Harimau Muda project in slovakia is a good innovation to expose our players to overseas football with proper group support instead of just sending them one by one which untill today not fruitful at all..

---

Added on May 3, 2011, 11:30 pmi judge the success of players that we send abroad by how they effect the national team or our local football industry as a whole. Akmal Rizal may not reach the expectation that we hope of him, but at least he contributed to the national team and we get to actually see him play in the league..

titus james for me just succesfully prove to me that Malaysian can become french if they want to...and thats about it.. where is the football?

This post has been edited by aressandro10: May 3 2011, 11:30 PM

Actually, Akmal wanted to stay on with Strasbourg, but IINM, he couldn't because of the non-EU rules. He went to a 3rd division club and then an amateur club (again IINM) and then decided instead of amateur level, might as well I go back home and play in the M-Leauge. For that, I don't think he should be blamed, because he did try for at least 1.5 years.

The ones you're referring to on homesick and miss food are Fazli Shaari and one other dude who played for Selangor. That one really pissed me off coz both these fellas did not last more than a month.

Well that's the difference. I'm talking about having the drive and ambition to succeed overseas. Titus may not be the most gifted but he's decided to try and make it in a bigger league. This is what I was discussion the minority - local youngsters wanting to be attached to foreign clubs, especially English but not having the desire to work their way up from smaller clubs or leagues. Titus may not be making headlines but he isn't giving up on making a name there.

I agree with both Duke Red (drive) and Minority (opportunities). It's all about the drive and passion to succeed. In order to be good in football, we have to commit to better ourselves and of course in the meantime of practicing hard, we have to practice smart too. This is where influences (opportunities) around the footballers come to play.

nope, second place snatched by Norwich

life is simple..
you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want.
no need to spend a lot of time in the gym to keep a good shape.
get paid 2k-6k per month or more than 10k if u're good enough.
no one will told you to quit smoking.
get married to a local celebrity.

why bother working hard in overseas then... hoho

we have to look in the bigger picture and see again why we want players to go overseas in the first place. it is so that they can improve their playing ability and become better players for our national team and at the same time became icon and accelerating agent to spur our football industry developement.. something like what Nakata did for Japan..

its all good to go overseas in the development phase... but at one point we need to see the result and bring bread and butter to the table..
thats why akmal rizal returned... because by that time playing and giving back to the national team and the local league is getting better an option than languishing in a amateur league in France... and if i am not mistaken, injury played a factor too...

to picture him as someone without drive and ambition and a failure compare to Titus james is not fair at all... if i remembered correctly, he had an active oversea stint with 2 clubs for 2 season.. nobody was more upbeat to go and prove himself there than he was.. but at one point you have to re-asses back where can you contribute more.. there no point being overseas just for the sake of 'being overseas'...

one thing NOT to describe Akmal Rizal is he does not have drive an passion.. after all the ups and down he had.. to see him spearheading the Perak attack last night still can be inspiring to young players..


up untill now, in hindsight, all alumni of overseas football not really do much to change the local industry.. technically and ability wise, Fadli Shaari, Rudie Ramli and Juzaili Samion is not better than locally developed players in their generation like Hardi Jaafar, Indraputra, Amri Yahya or Safee Sali.Either we are not doing it right, or, sending players overseas is overrated in term of results...

This post has been edited by aressandro10: May 5 2011, 12:30 AM

You're putting words words into my mouth. I mentioned Akmal Rizal earlier but was corrected because it was another player that got homesick and missed the food here. Hence, I am not saying he doesn't have drive and passion because unlike Titus, I've no idea what his goal is. If it's to play in the local league, fairplay but I find it hard to believe that no player wants to play in any of the world's biggest leagues. If they give up on trying then it tells me they don't want it enough. Let's take Fandi Ahmad for example. He played in Holland for Groningen and averaged a goal every 3 games. He chose to come back to Asia despite and offer from Ajax Amsterdam because he couldn't really adapt. He later cited his regret for not furthering his career there. While he did play in Europe, he didn't have the drive to want to further succeed there. The key sentence here is that he regretted not continuing to ply his trade in Europe despite having the opportunity. All that he needed was the determination to do so despite environmental factors. Why do some of us accept overseas postings in countries like Bahrain or Dubai for 2 years or more? To further our careers. It isn't easy going to a new country alone where the culture is so different but yet, some do. Once again, it depends on how high you set your own goals and ambition.

Why does a person go overseas? Assuming you are sent by FAM or any other local body, your deduction would be correct. The bigger goal would be to improve the quality of domestive football and the national team. For players who aren't given the opportunity however and fund themselves, I'm pretty sure the goal is to earn a spot in a foreign team with better facilities, structure with the view of earning a good income from the game.

You are also assuming that Titus or Akmal Rizal would forever languish in Europe's lower leagues. Just because it's where he is now, it doesn't mean it's where he'll be his whole career - in reference to Titus. If you accept the 'fact' that you'll never gain any headway, then you are giving up. In interviews, Titus has stated that his ambition is to play in Ligue 1. This tells me he has the drive and desire to succeed despite it being an uphill task. If players give up on that dream, then it tells me that he lacks the drive and determination required to succeed. This is of course relative to the said player's ambition. Not everyone wants to reach for the sky.

Not everyone wants to gamble on the premise of being able to make it big in a more competitive foreign league. Some prefer to be a big fish in a small pond. Their choice really - it isn't up to us to dictate if one should spend their career in the ignomity of the lower leagues or return to be the local hometown hero.

That said, mentality is something the FAM should be taking a long hard look at. I would imagine that had Zidane chose to be say an accountant like me no one would know who the heck he is... (sigh, such is the lot of poor untalented me!)

This post has been edited by madmoz: May 5 2011, 02:18 PM

I agree which is why I mentioned it's subject to one's own personal ambition. I used Fandi as an example because the fact he regrets not furthering his career in Europe, tells me he had big dreams. Playing for Ajax is no small matter and they actually approached him twice, before and after he went to Groningen.