Malaysia U-23 coach Ong Kim Swee has been optimistic about the chance of his side at next year’s AFC U-23 Championship in China.
Malaysia have been drawn in Group C with three Middle East sides – Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
“Iraq are the favourite because they are always good at the youth level. But the gap in age group tournaments is not big although we are from South-East Asia,” said Kim Swee after the draw in Changzhou yesterday, as quoted by The Star.
“You can see from the group that we have three Middle East teams and they have been playing against each other most of the time in their region.
“The draw also gives us a slight advantage because we will have to prepare against teams who play a similar type of football.”
It has been the first time Malaysia competing in the final round of U-23 Asia Championship after finishing top of their group ahead of Thailand, Indonesia and Mongolia in the qualifying round in July.
