World Cup 2014: Why Malaysia can win

Malaysia lost 3-5 against Singapore last Saturday in the World Cup 2014 Asia Qualifying 2nd round 1st leg. Return leg will be played this Thursday at the National Stadium Bukit Jalil in Kuala Lumpur.

For the neutrals, it was a good piece of football with loads of goals. But as a fan, I'm not too happy because we conceded 5 goals. The good thing was we scored 3 away goals and this can be crucial for the return leg. 

Having won the AFF Cup last December, Malaysian football was certainly on the rise. But lets us have a reality check first. Being the AFF Cup champion doesn't mean that we are the best in the South East Asian region. We beat Vietnam and Indonesia prior to that but we didn't lock horns with the Singaporeans plus we only managed to get a draw with the mighty Thais.

We are still ranked 143 in the world and that doesn't definitely makes us the best. Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are still above us in the world ranking. But this does not also tells us that we can't excel against Singapore on Thursday.

Reasons why Malaysia can proceed to the 3rd round of the Asia World Cup 2014 Qualifying.

Pride
The current set of Malaysian players does show some urgency in their brand of football. We don't have world class players like Gerrard, Messi, Van Der Vaart, Casillas, Ronaldo but these boys do play as if there's no tomorrow. Their work ethic and their willingness to 'try' is their strong point. It tells us the fans that the boys are very proud when they put the National jersy on. They have shown this again and again from the Sea games, Asian games and AFF Cup. Events showed they had to deal with injuries to key players, bad refereeing and hostile environment but they came out on top. This is because their heart is at the right place.

The wisdom of K Rajagopal (Datuk)
Head coach Datuk K Rajagopal definitely have to dig deep this time around. But this is not his first time he has been in this kind of situation. We lost to Indonesia 5-1 in the AFF Cup opening game but we managed to become the champions. We were out of several key players during the ASIAN games but the boys fared tremendously well.  No any difference this time around.

Credit to the Singapore players for taking every opportunity to score when chances were given to them but the boys never gave up. 4-1 at half-time and the players scored another 2 goals to make it 4-3; it was not an easy task. The game ended with Singapore scored another goal but the players fight back was a major talk.

I am pretty sure Datuk K Rajagopal will have something up his sleeves to surprise the visiting Lions.

The 12th Men
Cum Thursday, I believe that National Stadium Bukit Jalil will be packed with the Malaysian fans cheering the home team. 80,000 - 90,000 will be expected to turn-up. This will be a major moral booster to the players. Most of the fans were disappointed with the result during the 1st leg, but they will not turn their back on the National team right now.

It's due to the players performances that has somehow return the belief to the nation that we can actually play a decent football after all.

The same reason - players performance, I'm sure the fans will 'roar like a tiger' and send shivers to the Singaporean players and put them under pressure.

A win for Malaysia and that's inevitable.