was he any good?

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..

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..

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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

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