KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia need a head coach capable of delivering silverware after years of strengthening the national team with naturalised and heritage players, says football analyst Dr Zulakbal Abd Karim.
He said the priority now was to find a coach who could get the best out of the available talent and turn promising performances into trophies.
Zulakbal said Harimau Malaya had made progress under previous foreign coaches Kim Pan Gon and Peter Cklamovski, but winning major titles remained an elusive target.
Pan Gon, who took charge in February 2022, guided Malaysia to qualify for the 2023 Asian Cup on merit for the first time since 1980.
Malaysia also held South Korea to a 3-3 draw at the tournament in January 2024 before the South Korean resigned in July that year.
Cklamovski began his tenure in January 2025 but left the national team in June 2026 without delivering a major trophy.
Malaysia's last Asean Championship title came in 2011, while their most recent silverware was the Merdeka Tournament in 2024 under caretaker coach Pau Marti, Pan Gon's former assistant.
"We had Cklamovski and Pan Gon guiding the team. There were good results under them but we didn't get the results or win trophies," said Zulakbal.
He also pointed to Tan Cheng Hoe's record as interim coach in the recent FIFA Asean Cup, where Malaysia went unbeaten and did not concede a goal but settled for bronze in the inaugural competition.
Zulakbal said FAM's technical committee must identify what the national team needed before selecting a successor, with winning silverware a key objective.
"I feel winning trophies will put the national team on track to qualify for the Asian Cup regularly," he said.
He added that Malaysia had not appointed a globally renowned coach for some time, citing Frenchman Claude Le Roy, who coached several African national teams at the World Cup, as an example of the calibre of coach the country had previously attracted in 1994.
However, Zulakbal acknowledged that a high-profile foreign appointment could be costly as FAM seeks to restore its reputation following the fake heritage-player scandal, which he said had also affected its ability to attract sponsors.
If FAM could not afford a world-class foreign coach, he said Cheng Hoe could be considered, provided the national body gave him adequate support.
"We know that Cklamovski and Pan Gon had massive backroom staff to assist them, so FAM needs to be fair to Cheng Hoe by giving him the same support," he said.
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