KUALA LUMPUR: It seems the national men's team are going Down Under for a match with a low percentage of winning.
Or you can look at it as a gamble by FAM to have its national team play New Zealand in a friendly on Oct 14.
World No. 132 Harimau Malaya hope that the mission against the All Whites at the North Harbour Stadium on Oct 14 will lead to an improved ranking for a favourable draw for the 2007 Asian Cup third round qualifier.
They hope to beat a team, ranked 37 places above them. Malaysia, who have 1117.64 points, will gain 6.22 points for a win. It's 1.22 for a draw and minus 3.78 for a loss.
New Zealand will be coming off a match against Tahiti in the second round of the Oceania's 2026 World Cup qualifier in Vanuatu on Oct 11.
However, national coach Pau Marti Vicente's decision to include two untested Under-19 players - goalkeeper Haziq Aiman Mohd Esa and Haykal Danish Mohd Haizon - for the trip has raised eyebrows.
Football critic Dr. Zulakbal Abdul Karim said if the team have set their minds on gaining ranking points, they shouldn't be bringing along the untested youngsters.
"It looks like the team's goal is to improve their ranking points for a better seeding for the Asian Cup draw. It's good to see the team taking a gamble to achieve it by playing higher-ranked countries," said the Asian Football Confederation Professional Coaching Diploma holder.
"However the decision to include two untested youngsters seems to be off. When you have made up your mind for something, you need to have a single minded approach to achieve it.
"You need to have the best players available for the mission and prepare well to get the desired results. This is not the stage to expose the youngsters to gain experience with the national team. This will send mixed signals on the direction of the team, and I hope better thoughts are given when players are called up for a national assignment."
Zulakbal believes that Vicente has ample time to prepare his team and that the players'fitness should be at a high level, coming off the Super League, and their morale would also be high after winning the Merdeka Tournament on Sept 8.
"There's a change of play from Kim Pan Gon's style, I believe the current coach would have identified our strengths and weaknesses. We are going to play a higher ranked team, we should have studied how they are going to let us play against them.
"The players should have used the Merdeka Tournament as a warm-up, we played teams that were not too strong but now we are stepping up and the performance needs to be raised," he added.