Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin, president of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), revealed the six qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 2026 Asian Qualifiers are more important than the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Final round in their mission to reach the next level of the Asian football.
“After we achieved some positive results consistently, this is also for the survival of our football as our supporters want.” DHMA said.
“This is a ‘test drive’ to see if we can’t qualify for the next round and can’t eat these three teams, this means we haven’t reached the level to challenge the teams that are in groups 10 to 19 in Asia.”
“So it starts with the action against Kyrgyzstan, this Thursday and not just this game but all the actions. After there has been some improvement in these two years, we have to continue and this (qualifying round) will be the turning point.”
“If we qualify for the next round, we will get a lot of benefits, among which we don’t want to miss the opportunity to test Asia’s top teams.”
“If we don’t qualify, maybe we will have to have a friendly team with a lower ranked team only,”
At the same time, Hamidin also explained that this does not mean that the AFC Asian Cup 2023 is not important for the players but that the qualifying action is more important as it gives many advantages to the national squad.
“I don’t want to say that the Asian Cup is not important but we have to remember that we have three matches in the Asian Cup and can collect points for the International Football Federation (FIFA) ranking.
“But if we qualify for the next round in this qualifier, we create history by qualifying for the final round of the World Cup qualifiers, automatically qualifying for the 2027 Asian Cup, a better ranking in addition to the opportunity to play against the top teams in Asia.
“There are some other things that can definitely help our football if we can qualify for the next round for the qualification later,”
Credit Photo : Majoriti
