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A disappointing no show

Our young Malaysian players were expecting to face the weak Pakistan to imitate what the NT did earlier today but it was a no show, Pakistan still doesn't have a team. While the Malaysian players use that free time to visit the country, I would like to seize this opportunity to talk about the recent history.

Flashback...

Season 27 Consolation Tournament, after a difficult start with 3 losses, the Malaysia U21 NT went on a winning with 5 straight wins to finish #30 and qualify for tournament bracket. Unfortunately, they fell short against the strong Lithuania which lost in semi-finals against the future winner, Serbia. In that team, there was already Ilayaraja Vikesh who is now playing his second consolation tournament! It shows the player's quality! Another member of that team was Steve Gabriel, current member of Malaysia NT.

Season 25 Consolation Tournament, the team lead by Xiao Daocheng and Jackson Victor, two current members of the Malaysia NT went on for a record breaking performance with only one loss against the strong Australia. Finishing #15, they drew many hopes against the matching Swiss team. However, despite a late run, Malaysia lost in a heart-breaking finish, with 2 points less than Switzerland, Malaysian's hopes died. To this day, it is the best performance of any U21 Malaysia NT.

The only other qualification was during Season 9 when Malaysia U21 NT finished #19. The recent successes in U21 competitions show a real improvement from a further past. This Season 29 expects to continue the improvement as high as it is possible to hope.

Hidup Malaysia!

That's a plan the Malaysia U21 NT manager can only be happy about. What I don't get is will you stop training the player if he still didn't fulfill his potential by the time he is 22-year old? The best example is Steve Gabriel, he almost reached his maximum salary by 22 but he still needs to be trained for the NT. Unless you find a manager who wants to take over the training to make your trainee a NT player. That's something I like to do even if I'm not the best at it.

I hope I will still be the Malaysia U21 NT manager (or assistant) when your Davis and my own trainee are 21 (Season 32), with a few other guys around, the team could be competitive but I didn't shortlisted many candidates so far. Season 31 team looks promising as well, there are many players being trained, they have the potential to be as good as this season. Next season (Season 30) won't be as good nor as deep as this season.

Yes, yes and YES! We're going to play against France! I secretly dreamt of it!

As you said, we will have 3 difficult games and we can't afford to lose all 3 of them. With 2 losses, we should qualify, with 3 losses, it should be up to the point differences and we don't want to go there. We will also have to be careful against these supposedly weaker teams, they all have the potential to beat us and we should stay focus.

There are some games which are better to be forgotten

A confident U21 Malaysia NT started this game against the strong Slovakia and it started well, Huang Chengkang scored the first basket inside, they replied right away and on their following offense, Huang, him again, did a big foul which left their starting PG injured after only 1 minute in the game. The rest of the game was a long and painful to watch torture, Malaysia didn't even manage to score 1 point per minute in the first 3 quarters (35 points after 36 minutes), all their drives were stopped by the strong inside defense of their opponents. The last quarter was just for the sake of finishing the game but with a 27-point loss, the humiliation was complete way before the final buzzer.

A loss against Slovakia is nothing to be ashamed of but such a big loss with so little to show for is unacceptable! The worst thing might be that the tactics weren't that bad, the coach correctly guessed that they were going to attack inside and the 2-3 zone was there to slow them down, it didn't work out.

I would like to apologize to the entire Malaysian community for such an awful game and I will accept your criticism. If you have any advice on what could have been done better (even after seeing how the game went), I would gladly hear it. You can tell me what you think here or with a BB email.

Last edited by Nico4nicolas at 11/10/2014 2:01:59 PM

Thanks for the comments, westri and you are both right about the 2-3 and how it could have helped them to hurt us. I agree with you that Man on man would have done better. In the end, I think I underestimated a bit how good their players are.

I saw that you easily won your first game, congratulations to you! Now, you're going to face a few of the best teams in the world, it won't be any easy and a bit of luck will be necessary but knowing your skills as a manager, I would say that anything is possible!

As for the young Malaysian guard, that's unfortunate, freaking French people! I only wish we could beat them later on.