After weeks of anticipation, Malaysia’s new national head coach Nelo Vingada was officially presented today at a press conference in St. Regis.
The official introduction was done in presence of Football Association of Malaysia’s President, Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, assistant head coach Tan Cheng Hoe, and FAM secretary-general Dato’ Hamidin Amin.
The head coach, also known as “The Professor”, seemed all eager and excited to commence his job with the national football team as he spoke about his plans for the next few months.
Speaking of his first task to prep the national football team for their Asian Cup qualifiers match against Lebanon, Nelo Vingada confessed that it is not going to be a walk in the park.
“I’ll be honest, it’s not going to be easy to go up against teams like Lebanon, Hong Kong, and North Korea. They are on a different level, and my challenge is to get the team up to that level.” the head coach said.
“How I do things is that I usually build my team around their players. For example, when I was in Saudi Arabia, I had two excellent strikers, and I built my team around that.”
“I’m not the kind of coach who says who have to play this way, or you have to do it like that. I build my team according to the team’s level and capacity of players.”
“What’s important is that we adopt a strong mentality and operate on a winning philosophy. I like fast players who have no fear on the pitch.”
When asked if the time given is enough for him to prep the national team, Vingada joked that “time is never enough for any coach”.
“Let’s take it step by step, and focus on the next game. From there we can improve and get better for the next game.”
Vingada also noted that the national football team will assemble by the 2nd of June to commence trainings.
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