Football Association of Malaysia appear to be warming up to the idea of having naturalized players within the Malaysian national team after it’s president, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah dropped hints on issue.
The nation’s footballing body previously rejected the idea, when speculations were suggesting the possibility of Paulo Rangel being naturalized to boost our attacking credentials, though it now seems that they could be open to the idea, after all.
“Of course, we need to focus on the local players we have at the moment,” Tengku Abdullah told Harian Metro.
“But if we were to naturalize someone, proper analysis needs to be conducted. We can’t just pick names, we need to carefully analyze and select the best. These players need to be significantly better than the ones we currently have,” he added.
This comes after Dollah Salleh’s recent claims about Malaysia’s struggle to produce quality strikers. With foreign players occupying most of the attacking positions within local sides, Dollah doesn’t exactly have options when it comes to selection of strikers.
Datuk Ong Kim Swee also endorsed the idea of naturalizing players, while Paulo Rangel himself proclaimed that he would be open to the idea of spearheading the Malaysian national team’s attack.
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