Malaysian football expert demands training curriculum review after home team loses 0-4 to Vietnam U17.

Malaysian football expert Zulakbal Abdul Karim spoke out after his country's U17 team lost 0-4 to Vietnam U17 in the 2026 Southeast Asian U17 group stage.

The News Strait Times wrote about the aforementioned defeat: "The heavy 0-4 loss of Malaysia U17 to Vietnam U17 in the opening match of Group A at the Southeast Asian U17 championship serves as another wake-up call for Malaysian football."

According to this newspaper, the recent defeat forced the students of coach Shukor Adan into a position where they must win in matches against Indonesia U17 on Thursday and Timor Leste U17 on Sunday. This aims to compete for the second-place group position to secure a spot in the semifinals.

Football expert Zulakbal Abdul Karim believes that achieving victory in this arena remains a crucial step forward for Malaysian football.

"This is only the first match, but this heavy defeat is a sign that we are facing difficulties in building a good team. We have players from the District Training Center (PLD), sports schools, and the Mokhtar Dahari Academy (AMD), but the current quality seems still lacking," expert Zulakbal Abdul Karim stated.

"If a 0-4 loss is the best that our top talents can achieve, we need to find out the root cause of the mistake. Were the training sessions sufficient? Have we called up the best talents nationwide to the team?" expert Zulakbal Abdul Karim continued.

"We need to conduct an immediate inspection of the training curriculum. Internal and objective inspection is extremely important to identify the unstable points," the Malaysian football expert added.

Mr. Zulakbal further stated that the Director of the National Football Development Program (NFDP), Datuk Ong Kim Swee, and the U17 team coach Shukor Adan need more time to produce results.

"We once had S. Balachandran and P. Maniam helping the team win the Southeast Asian U17 championship, so I wonder why they were not retained or continued to accompany the subsequent development stages of the squad," Mr. Zulakbal shared.

"We need the best coaches to guide the young players... this level is very important and requires specialized training because they have to work with young players who are not yet professionals," the Malaysian football expert added.

"Some players may have successful playing careers, but transitioning to coaching is not easy, especially at the youth level. We need to ensure we have coaches with suitable profiles and they should have extensive coaching experience," Mr. Zulakbal emphasized.