Lions in the way of Tigers' charge at history

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SINGAPORE - Their performances in the last couple of years have rejuvenated football in Malaysia, brought fans back to the stadiums, and even won their coach the Panglima Jasa Negara, which comes with the privilege of using the title "Datuk" as a prefix to his name.

The SEA Games gold medal came in 2009, Malaysia's first in 20 years, which was swiftly followed by the AFF Suzuki Cup win last December, the country's first senior ASEAN title - and now, Singapore stand in the way of another bid from Datuk K Rajagobal and his charges to rewrite Malaysian history.

Malaysia have never gone past the first round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers in any of their various formats, but managed that last week when they negotiated past Taiwan, qualifying for the second round on away goals after a 4-4 stalemate over two legs.

Now, the Republic's Lions block their path into the third round, where the best of Asia come out to play.

Singapore will face Malaysia on July 23 at the Jalan Besar Stadium, with the return leg five days later in Kuala Lumpur.

"Whether we make history or not, I just want to bring back the good old days when the country and the community were excited about football," Rajagobal told MediaCorp yesterday.

"And neither set of players will need any extra motivation for this match - it's Malaysia versus Singapore. We know each other very well, these games have always been exciting, and always close."

It has not always been close. Malaysia beat Singapore 4-0 in 2002 in front of 40,000 disappointed fans at the National Stadium, a loss that saw the exit of then-coach Jan Poulsen, and sparked a renewal of the Lions under Radojko Avramovic - and two consecutive ASEAN titles.

Now it is Malaysia who are riding the wave of two titles of their own, and the 3-2 defeat away to Taiwan on Sunday will not affect their confidence.

"There's no way that result will affect our team. We lost 5-1 to Indonesia in our opening game at the Suzuki Cup, did that affect the team then?" asked Rajagobal rhetorically of his team's charge to the ASEAN title last year.

"We lost, there should be no excuses, but how often do you see a team win three penalties in a single game?" he added, referring to the three spot kicks won by Taiwan during their 3-2 victory on Sunday, but who only converted two. Scoring the third would have seen Malaysia lose the match and the two-leg tie.

The Suzuki Cup win has clearly changed the psyche of this Malaysian team.

Malaysia have struggled recently with injuries to forwards Safee Sali and Norshahrul Idlan, who are both likely to return against Singapore.

And when asked if injuries to Singapore goalkeeper Hassan Sunny and the pacy Khairul Amri is good news to him, Rajagobal said: "We went to the Suzuki Cup without seven first-choice players, did that turn out to be good news to the other teams there?

"It could be the same for Singapore."

Rajagobal revealed that he will only get his team together for centralised training just a week before the July 23 date with Singapore, but they will get a lot of practice, against the likes of Chelsea (July 13) and Liverpool (July 16).

Said the coach: "You can have many games against high quality opposition, but against Singapore, the only thing that will count is the team's performance on match day."