Malaysian football depends on Bayern Munich coach! That malaysian-born coach!

Malaysia suddenly looks so promising after Datuk Tony Fernandes bought some shares at QPR.  Previously I mentioned, with Tony Fernandes, Malaysian believes “Now Everyone can play in Premier League”. To be more accurate, we should believe that “Now Everyone can play with Premier League standard”.

With Tony as the boss, he can get Lim Teong Kim as the assistant coach for Neil Warnock. Lim who? Ask legend in football like Uli Hoeneß, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, or Franz Beckenbauer, they will give you a good testimonial for Lim. Why- because this gentleman is the assistant coach for German Bundesliga giant Bayern Munich under-19 squad since 2000.

 Lim was the witness of Thomas Muller and Holger Badstuber development process. He was instrumental in their rapid rise to stardom.

Fluent in German, Lim is a holder of both Malaysia Football Association (FAM) Advanced Coaching Certificate and German Football Association (DFB) Master Coaching Licence. Good news from Lim, his son, who is now 17, is in the Under-12 Bayern Munich team. 


Who knows he might represent Malaysia at international stage soon. One thing for concern, Lim’s wife is a German so his son might represent Germany too. Who wouldn’t want that right?

Lim can come back to help Malaysia after his stint with Neil Warnock and work together with Rajagopal. Together, they can lead Malaysia to be the Champion of Asia, dethroning Japan in the process. That’s a huge task! Look forward to see Teong Kim come back to his country and contribute back to Malaysia football.

A few years back, Teong Kim was interviewed on his opinion with Malaysia football. He recommended this few things,


a) National team players should remain in the Malaysian League. He suggested they go on playing tours in Europe three or four times a year. However, they must play with top teams and clubs to learn. Never mind if the team lose 5-0 or 10-0. They should not lose hope if they lose big at the start.

b) There is no proper infrastructure. The current infrastructure is 30 years behind time. Malaysian football will not develop unless the infrastructure here improves. What Bayern Munich have and what he has seen here is not good enough. Maybe it was good enough 20 or 30 years ago but not at the present time. In Bayern Munich, for example, there are seven fields and other facilities are also top class. Bayern have 11 youth teams in age-groups between eight and 23, with more than 100 players. The club allocates E2 million (RM9.7 million) annually for its youths teams. The system is almost the same with other clubs in Europe. Malaysia doesn’t have these. Instead, the government and local councils are taking away football fields.

c) The states should play a bigger role in developing youth football. They should do the work and run the programmes but infrastructure must be there first. Sports schools like Bukit Jalil and Bandar Penawar should be supplementary ingredients in this case.



d) It is ridiculous not to have foreign players in the league. It does not help in the development of local players. How are Malaysian teams going to compete against bigger Asian clubs in the Champions League and AFC Cup? A Malaysian team cannot rely on local players against clubs with foreign players. It is a huge loss in revenue as they are not good enough to compete against the best in Asian. Why did FAM decide on barring imports from the league? Is it because some teams could not afford foreign players? The association should allow those who can afford to hire them. One cannot look at all teams in the league as equal. Teams, who do not have money for development and foreign players, should be left out. It should be left to the respective clubs on whether to hire foreign players. This is professional football.


e) Malaysia should hire foreign coaches because they have comprehensive knowledge about the game. Malaysia needs foreign help to take their football to another level. If M’sia ambition is to develop good players, then they have to hire good coaches. For instance, Japan is now Asian giants because they hired top-notched foreign coaches to develop their game at the start.

When further asked will Teong Kim consider a coaching job in Malaysia, he replied

“I will consider working in Malaysia but first several conditions of mine must be accepted. What I want is infrastructure. I will consider a job here when there are proper facilities. The government should start by developing proper infrastructure for a few state teams before developing the rest. It is a slow process but the nation will gain in the long term”.   Lim Teong Kim

So, Malaysia, let’s recall Lim’s advice and analyze dis we do that?


a) Go for playing tours? Yes we did that. Sending our players to play with the clubs from Slovakia and the kids came back with positive results.
b) Proper infrastructure? Remain the same.
c) Role of states in developing youth football. Yes, they are doing a great work here.
d) Foreign players in the league? No changes to that. We miss watching Philimon Chepita and Marlon James scoring goals!
e) Foreign coaches? We don’t need that at the moment. In Rajagopal we trust.

Still, a chance of Lim coming back is slim. He requested to have proper facilities and we still can’t fulfill that. FAM should take some action if they want one of the best Malaysian coach abroad to come back and coach Harimau Malaya.


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