KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will name their Sultan of Johor Cup (SoJC) squad after playing a friendly with Australia at the National Stadium in Bukit Jallil next week.
The tournament, from Oct 22-29 at Taman Daya Stadium in Johor Baru, will feature champions Britain, silver medallists India, Japan and South Africa.
Australia will arrive on Oct 16 and after a day's rest, play Malaysia.
"We will name the 18-member squad from 30 trainees in camp right after the warm-up against Australia. We will also play Britain at the Taman Daya Stadium on the 19th. I believe the team will be ready to put up a decent fight.
"However, I am not expecting miracles from them as all of them had competed in the Malaysia Games and many other tournaments this year. And we only had them for about 14 days to train as a team," said Malaysia assistant coach Megat Azrafiq.
Britain, Australia and India are the early favourites in the SoJC, which was shelved for two years due to Covid-19. In 2019 Malaysia beat Japan 3-2 for the bronze.
"Malaysia will host the Junior World Cup about a year from now, and the SoJC will be our first tournament to gauge the team's strength. After that, we will go on a few tours and compete in other tournaments as well before ending with the SoJC again next year.
"I believe even though this set of players will find this SoJC tough, by December next year they will be ready to better their eighth placing at the last Junior World Cup (Bhubaneswar, 2018)," said Megat.