THAT FOOTBALL POST

IT was a confusing assignment, as I'd not known what would surface in the National Sports Institute's launch of their journal at the Lake Club in KL sometime in May, prior to leaving for the Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Terengganu.
What struck me most there was the tone and body language of most of the NSI top brass. It was like NSI was trying to get a few points across for some reason.
Having said that, personally, I'd always wondered why the NSI had been taking a backseat to the more prominent National Sports Council (NSC) in most areas of sport, when actually they should be playing a far more front-line role.
Now, by saying that, and quoting Datuk Dr Ramlan Abdul Aziz in this posting, I hope I am not branded a pro-ISN or anti-MSN writer, as everybody knows there's more than a little friction between the two. Leave me out of it.
Anyway, my story at the Lake Club that day was what NSI was going to do in the development sector, particularly with the Sukma level athletes and it also concerned doping controls to be established at the Sukma. That story appeared in the NST the next day. Sorry I'm too lazy to go looking for it and checking for exact dates. This is a light-hearted piece on something else, I think, so I wanna just relax and let fly.
What I remember most from that assignment was the chit-chat with NSI director general Datuk Dr Ramlan Abdul Aziz, which was off topic, as the function neared its end. We spoke about, of all topics, football over a cup of tea.
"So, I take it we're reading from the same page," he said midway through the conversation. Yes, I guess Dr. Ramlan did take notice that I had even a very mild understanding of what sports science could do for our football.
"Football requires a different kind of fitness, so what you use for other athletes, you can't use for football," someone else I know told me before, which I never believed.
The NSI were in the midst of conducting several studies on athletes in selected sports, which are to be used as basis for identification of procedures and training methods in the development of junior and senior athletes. This had been reported and is common knowledge.
"We generally base these studies on the sports that cover basic human movements," Dr Ramlan explained. This, I thought would mean athletics, swimming, cycling and gymnastics, but due to some matters beyond the NSI's control, they've also included bowling and hockey.
Anyway, back to football, and I did agree with Dr Ramlan on his suggestions on the way forward for football.
I'd explained that a lot has been overlooked and the people, the administrators of football in the country, seem to think they're doing the right thing, don't need help other than money and will generally just be happy to wait for fortunes to change. They aren't going to change.
From my limited knowledge and research on football, I'd identified the need to work on athleticism of players with more scientific input as one of the areas we need to work on seriously. That, above all and before we spend too much money on foreign help, foreign exposure trips and so on, which we've been doing for far too long without results.
Look at the South Koreans, even the North Koreans, the Chinese, Japanese, Iranians, and now slowly the Thais. What our administrators have been talking about when dealing with our failures all along is the mindset, our players' mentality, our lifestyle, hell they even blame it on our lovely food.
Look at why our players fail whenever they go for attachments with European teams. Sure, it is easy to blame the lack or abundance of nasi lemak. But it is mental. It is a mental breakdown that occurs when the athlete feels overwhelmed in every area of his game by superior athletes.
In truth, all our athletes are equipped with in their European pursuits are varying amounts of skill, a big heart and fighting spirit. That is all lost when they find they're not only smaller in body mass and low on power, they've also got to adapt to an entirely different training regime, they've got a lot of catching up to do (too much catching up to do), they've even got to eat different foods and find they have to change too much on such short notice.
They then cower into their cocoon and crumble. But all we have to say is, they're the so called "nasi lemak boys" because they miss nasi lemak.
So what's the problem? Everything is.
Look at the best development regimes and compare them to ours. Physiologically, we do not practice anything at an early enough stage of development. All we do is increase the number of tournaments at schools level, come up with new competitions every now and again and we seem to think that all our ailments are from the existence of foreign players and the structure of our league, which needs to be reshuffled over and over again. All using the same old archaic training and development methods.
Nutritional aspects are neglected and it seems only when athletes get to the senior level and are lucky enough to come under the programmes that include the NSI, do they gain the benefits of sports science, which is rather too late.
"It isn't about the skill anymore. We're no longer in that era where superior skill surpasses everything. I'm not saying you don't need skill. Of course you do, but in order to perform at the current level, the physiological criteria has to be met," Dr Ramlan explained. I must stress again, this was just regular chit-chat, nothing serious. But then again, chats with Dr Ramlan are always like this.
"To perform at the highest level, you need to be a superior athlete first, before you can make your skills count. We shouldn't be looking at players who can only dribble past 10 defenders, and juggle the ball for hours. Those are skills that can only take you so far," added Dr Ramlan.
This is exactly what I'd imagined, and Doc Ramlan confirmed it. That brought to mind my wonders about the Japanese and Korean youth squads and how their players were performing in age group tournaments I'd covered earlier and went bonkers over why some of our players looked better on the ball, more nimble, faster at some points but we still ended up well beaten, sometimes thrashed.
Our teams comprised footballers, enthusiastic footballers at that. But Japan and South Korea used footballers who were superior athletes, who were technically sound, with enough brains and were able to carry out tactics that overpowered even a hard-running Malaysian squad.
Look at it this way. If you do an 11-second 100m run, it is good. But if you can do a 14-second 100m run over and over again, plus lots of other things over the course of 90 minutes, that would be far better. If you could dribble around two defenders, it would be good to impress Malaysian scouts (if there ever were any); but if you could dribble past two defenders, cross the ball and in case there's a rebound and counter attack, able to recover fast enough from the first burst of power to get back to your defensive position and provide cover, maintain your composure throughout, that would impress scouts of a far higher level.
You should be able to make the same pass, with the same accuracy in the first minute of play, as well as at the 90th minute of play or in extra-time, after having taken a whole battery of knocks and bruises throughout.
Now I don't wonder why Park Ji Sung can perform so well and consistently at EPL level when he's no bigger than most of our footballers? He's built tough, the right way, from head to toe.
It is about bringing the human body up to a level where it is able to perform what is required of a football player over 90 minutes and more. Talents are identified, not just on the regular ratings, but on potential in these areas as well. Maybe even more importantly through potential in these areas, rather than just skill, sharpness, etc, areas that can be developed through training.
That is how I believe sports science could help improve physiological competency in our football. I'm sorry, I'm not a doctor, so I hope I used the right words.
I guess, this is the area of football where we're being left behind. You do it not just on the field, but in the labs, in the gyms, in the ice baths, you rate power, VO2 Max readings, wattage...etc, just like a cyclist or swimmer, only your targets are different. And this should involve every player right from the lowest age-group level to the MSL. And should be a continuous process.
Players too have to be properly educated about what they're supposed to be doing, not just told or directed to do their training or tests. We're already way into the era of interactive training, not just hard-line regimented training, where players are robots and just do as they're told without feedback.
That is, at least, a bit of what Dr Ramlan believes the NSI too would like to do for Malaysian football.
But, Dr Ramlan agreed, it is a monumental task. One that would mean scaling the length and breadth of the country, transforming the way the entire nation, right from schools up to the MSL level, looks at training and development of players. Which would also incur cost.
The cost factor is something that maintains other areas, ones that we're more used to, the priority over these improvements. And this part that we've never gone into seriously, has been left rather untouched, when South Korea, Japan, China have all restrategised long ago.
Training methods too keep on evolving, so we cannot remain stagnant, doing what we have been doing and training our players the same way their coaches were trained in 1986.
Go to Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, park your car outside the gates one evening when any of the national squads are training, and have a look at what they've doing. They practice their passing, their physical drills, all that, the same way they've been doing for decades. Frankly, has that improved our fortunes in front of goal?
So do we look at it seriously enough to think that the time has come to do something more, something different? Even if you do, I'm not sure we can change because the FAM themselves are too busy selecting their officials and office bearers, while those in position have to spend a lot of time trying to avoid getting bumped out of position.