Indian Football
Uttiyo Sarkar
The Malaysia football team are poised to be India’s final opponents in 2024 when they face off against Manolo Marquez’s men in an international friendly on November 19, 2024. This will be the first match-up between these two teams since their dramatic encounter at the 2023 Merdeka Tournament when Malaysia picked up a 4-2 win in rather controversial circumstances.
Since then, both teams have faced their ups and downs. India are yet to win a competitive international game in 2024 and have fallen to 125th position in the FIFA Rankings as a result. Malaysia managed to draw against the Kyrgyz Republic at the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, but even they’ve faced issues after that.
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Malaysia are likely to be a tougher proposition for the Blue Tigers than Vietnam was in the previous international match, in which they drew 1-1. Malaysia have been a hard-working national team over the decades and fans can’t be blamed for wondering if they have ever played in a FIFA World Cup edition, unlike India.
No, Malaysia have not been able to qualify for the group stages (or beyond) of a FIFA World Cup edition in their history. They have taken part in the qualifying rounds for the last 14 World Cup editions, but have not been able to get past the qualifiers.
The first time that Harimau Malaya ever participated in a FIFA World Cup qualifier was for the 1974 FIFA World Cup edition.
Back in those days, the qualifiers for the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) and OFC (Ocean Football Confederation) used to take place together and that made things a bit more complicated for Asian teams to reach the World Cup.
To their credit, Malaysia held their ground in the 1974 FIFA World Cup qualifiers despite being placed in a group with Israel and South Korea. They held South Korea to a goalless draw in only their second World Cup qualifier and then picked up a win over Thailand in the final qualifier of that edition.
Irrespective of their hard work, Malaysia could not move past the first round of the World Cup qualifiers until the 2006 World Cup qualifiers. They were able to automatically qualify for the second round of the World Cup qualifiers for the edition held in Germany due to their place in the FIFA Rankings.
But the Harimau Malaya’s first tryst at the second round of the World Cup qualifiers did not go as intended at all. They were paired up with the likes of Kuwait, China and Hong Kong and ended up losing all six matches. They conceded 18 goals in the six matches, finishing horribly at the bottom of the group table.
✨FIFA WORLD CUP 2026 – AFC ASIAN CUP 2027 QUALIFIERS | Group DFT: Malaysia 🇲🇾 4️⃣ – 3️⃣ 🇰🇬 Kyrgyz Republic#FIFA #AFC pic.twitter.com/wN3RPyurJW
Malaysia have gotten better in their World Cup qualifiers participation after moving into the 21st century, as they’ve developed more strongly as a footballing nation. But their best-ever performance in a FIFA World Cup qualifier remains for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, as they came close to moving past the second round.
The Harimau Malaya started their qualifiers campaign by beating East Timor by a 12-2 margin in the first round, across two legs. They were placed in a relatively tricky group against the likes of UAE, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia – with only two of the top teams from each group able to make it into the third.
Malaysia impressively began their second-round qualifiers with a 3-2 win over Indonesia away from home. They had a promising start to the home game against the UAE after that, scoring in the first minute through Muhammad Syafiq, but ended up suffering a disappointing 2-1 loss in the end.
They won both their matches against Thailand in the two legs, as well as defeating Indonesia at home. They finished the World Cup qualifiers’ second-round stages with four wins out of eight, but that was not enough to get them a top-2 place.
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A major reason why they missed out on that was because of losing both their matches against Vietnam, making them finish in third place instead. But with six matches won out of a total of 10 in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers campaign, Malaysia’s performances in that edition remain their best.
The Harimau Malaya also failed to move past the second round for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, winning three of their six group games and finishing one point behind second-place Kyrgyz Republic in that edition. Malaysia will at least look to end 2024 on a high note with a big win over India, which can also help them move further upward in the FIFA World Rankings.
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