Malaysia coach Peter Cklamovski will lead a much-changed squad into Thursday’s Asian Cup qualifier against Laos as the fallout from an eligibility controversy continued to affect the team ahead of the game in Vientiane.
The Australian has been denied the services of Gabriel Palmero, Facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal and Hector Hevel as Fifa suspended the recently naturalised septet, citing doctored documentation.
The players have been handed 12-month bans and their absences leave a significant hole in a squad that had already started to see the benefits of the new arrivals.
While none of the seven had played more than four times for the country, Malaysia notched up wins over Nepal and Vietnam in Asian Cup qualifying, as well as securing friendly victories against Palestine and Singapore since their inclusion.
Malaysia have never qualified for the World Cup or won the Asian Cup and started looking at talent nurtured abroad after seeing neighbours Indonesia tap into a diaspora based in the Netherlands, the country’s former colonial power.
A Malaysian football fan before a World Cup 2022 qualifier against Indonesia in 2019. Photo: Reuters
The Indonesians have flourished since federation president Erick Thohir started to scour Europe for players eligible to play for the team, and the country will feature in the fourth round of Asia’s World Cup qualifiers this week.