KUALA LUMPUR – It has been nearly a month since Oscar Francisco Gonzalez was tasked with the significant responsibility of being the technical director of both the National Football Development Programme (NFDP) and the Mokhtar Dahari Football Academy (AMD).
The challenge before him is to revolutionise the landscape of youth development and scouting programmes across the country by leveraging his extensive experience.
Gonzalez, who holds a professional coaching diploma from the Asian Football Confederation and boasts 20 years of experience in elite youth football development programmes, has worked in countries with more advanced youth development systems, such as China and Australia.
Footballers in those systems begin elite development programmes as young as seven to nine years old.
However, in Malaysian football, where development often appears to occur on a “one step forward, two steps back” basis, the AMD, which is intended to be the country’s premier elite development programme, has traditionally been a breeding ground for players aged 13 to 17 years old, with admission only allowed at age 13.
For context, it was reported that the late Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah, the former president of the Football Association of Malaysia (1984-2014), proposed the AMD in 2009 in response to a decade-long lack of serious youth development by professional clubs and state teams.
Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, the Youth and Sports Minister at the time, expanded on the idea, adding a youth academy to bring together the country’s most promising young talents.
In 2014, it was decided that the academy would be located near the town of Gambang, Pahang, and named after one of the country’s most legendary players (Mokhtar Dahari), who rose to prominence in the 1970s and 80s before passing away prematurely in 1991 due to motor neuron disease.
The academy houses around 375 trainees, the best of the best NFDP participants from across the country, with one of the objectives being to mould them into professional players and to secure them playing contracts overseas.
Speaking to Scoop, sports analyst Mohd Sadek Mustafa said that the newly appointed AMD technical director, Oscar, should take the bold step of reintroducing the admission of footballers into the academy from the age of 10.
He also said that this step is essential to ensuring that the young footballers reach their peak performance and catch up with their regional competitors in the coming years.
“Looking at Oscar’s track record, he needs to implement the same blueprint that he did in the countries where he previously worked, where the elite youth programmes prioritise footballers as early as the age of seven.
“However, in Malaysia, we do not have to start too early; we can begin as early as the age of 10 to prepare them for a smooth transition to competitive football players in the future.
“This transition has been lacking over the years, and that’s why we don’t see many AMD players getting a career in the Malaysia Super League aside from being part of the under-17 national football team.
“Countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore have already started bringing in players to their elite development from a very young age, and it has been showing results as their players mature faster, and they can easily gel with the demands of international competitive football.
“Perhaps Oscar can convince AMD’s management to introduce AMD satellite programmes across all states in Malaysia so that they can channel the players in the same system when they assemble in Gambang. But at the end of the day, it’s in the hands of the government whether they will allow Oscar to introduce his blueprint in AMD or not,” said the senior sports science lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Mara when contacted.
Among the few top talents that emerged from AMD over the past decade are players such as Arif Aiman Hanapi, who plays for Johor Darul Ta’zim, and Luqman Hakim Shamsudin, who plays for YSCC Yokohama in the Japanese League.
NFDP and AMD, which rely on government funding, are currently under the purview of the National Sports Council, while FAM is only part of the steering committee. – June 8, 2024
