WHEN Thomas Dooley signed up as coach of Sri Pahang FC, he had little idea of the "poor" training facilities of many of the teams in the M-League.
The German-American admitted that he was surprised that an established outfit like Sri Pahang have facilities which he equates to that of clubs from the eighth division in Germany.
A former Bundesliga player, Dooley who had represented Bayer Leverkusen and FC Kaiserslautern, said: "I came over and saw the training place... there were no changing rooms. It's just a field with some water coming out from the back behind the concrete.
"I asked where's the changing room and the answer I got was 'we don't have one'. So, my next question was where do the players get changed? I was told they wash their own clothes and I said this has to change.
"We couldn't train properly on the field because it wasn't that good. But there is a turf field (350 metres from Darul Makmur Stadium), it's a couple of years old but it is of a newer generation.
"You want those players to play in front of 80,000 people but they wash their own clothes and change in the car. You can find that in the eighth division in Germany, and this (Super League) is the best division in Malaysia."
The former Philippines national coach said he is not complaining about Sri Pahang, and added that he's happy to be here.
However, Dooley feels that "small gestures" from coaches can get more out of the players in their performance.
"I asked the players to come earlier (for training) and gave them an example of how Real Madrid players would show up earlier. The (Sri Pahang) players turned up the next day about half an hour to an hour before training, and sat for another half an hour after. That's positive and that's what we need to build the team."
Dooley stressed that there's nothing wrong in making comparisons with European football especially when he has worked in the system for most of his 59 years.
Dooley, who is one of the eight foreign coaches in the Super League this season, said: "I'm not the best coach, there are probably 1,000 other better coaches but I do have a better clue than say somebody in the Philippines because I grew up in Germany where there was football at home, school, work, in the city and everyone's just talking about football.
"I have played since I was nine years old and lived in a country where football is everything, in conversations and in meetings. I have played professionally and was coached by the best in Europe.
"In Malaysia, it's not like there are no good coaches who are knowledgeable in all things. But you can make it better, make it different and this comes from the small things."