Skipper’s call

NATIONAL skipper Safiq Rahim wants to only taste victory when Malaysia play three friendly matches in the next two weeks.
Malaysia will play the Philippines tomorrow before taking on Singapore on June 8 and 12.
After playing a rather insignificant friendly against lowly-ranked Sri Lanka, these matches will be tougher for K. Rajagobal’s boys as the world ranking of the
Philippines is higher than Malaysia, and Singapore have naturalised players. The Philippines are ranked No 148 and Malaysia 153.
“Although they are ranked above us, the difference in quality isn’t that great. In fact, we are quite closely-matched in most areas and it would be interesting games to play,” said Safiq.
“We need to get things right against both teams after suffering some disappointments in the past.”
Safiq & Co could only manage a 1-1 draw when they played the Philippines in Manila on Feb 28, whereas being shown the exit at the World Cup qualifiers by Singapore still stings the Malaysian team.
The match against Philippines will not be any easier than the first time around as they have beefed up their squad with four Germany-based players.
“Who they have called up is not for us to be concerned about. We have to deal with these matters. Different countries have different ideologies in terms of naturalising foreign players and neither is it wrong to do so,” added the 24-year-old.
Just like Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines are expected to take the friendlies seriously as they prepare for the Asean Cup later this year.
Malaysia are defending champions and having tested around 60 players since the start of the year, a core of players have already been identified.
Rajagobal has named a 26-member squad, which includes Pelita Jaya striker Safee Sali, Norshahrul Idlan Talaha, Safiq Rahim, K. Gurusamy and Khairul Fahmi Che Mat for the friendlies.

Malay Mail