Part I: How to beat Perak - Piss them off

A few weeks after the end of the Malaysia Cup soccer campaign last year, I had the opportunity to talk to a well known and highly successful local coach. I asked him about Perak’s soccer team and he was kind enough to provide me with his tactical analysis. He even highlighted some visible weaknesses about Perak’s soccer team and I will share one of them here today. I would have more for you in the future.

According to the great local coach, Perak has a good soccer team that plays team football under Steve Darby. Even though Perak has some players with good individual skills, Steve Darby prefers his players to play by the rule of team football; that is to work together as a team. Unfortunately, Perak is only good at playing team football when they have their first eleven players on the field. If any of the first eleven players is missing or failed to provide maximum contribution to the team, Perak would easily lose shape and direction.

To cut a long story short, to beat Perak, the opposing team must:

• Break Perak’s rhythm by marking key players such as Keita Mandjou, Troare, Jamlus, Shahrul Azhar and some other midfielders (the tip was given last year while Keita, Troare and Kukoc were still around). Don’t give them any room to make and create chances. Perak would be a sinking boat without the full support of such key players.

By the way, the local coach who shared with me such tips even went a step further last year. He purposely asked his players to roughen up and piss off a few key Perak players. His objective is to make Perak players lose their cool, do stupid mistakes and ultimately break the team. His plan worked like a charm last year.

He’s a great coach, isn’t he? :-)

Tags: perak fa, malaysian super league, football, soccer, malaysia