Open Talk and Discussion By BAM

After hearing the reason for the Thomas Cup failure, I think Malaysia team still has not learnt from their mistake. More so they are trying to put the blames on others rather than themselve.

An open heart talk is held between BAM president, Datuk Nadzim Mohd Salleh and the Thomas Cup squad was held yesterady and all players and coaches were asked for the reason of failure, and surprisingly they blamed the media, officials, and even organisers fortheir failure.

First they blamed culture for their failure. They claimed we are culturally not as strong as China and Korea. What the heck! If you are mentally weak, or not strong enough you should put in more effort to counter it, and not to blame others for your own failure. This showed our players' immaturity and that's why they will never win a major tournament.

Disturbance from media also be blamed for their failure because too much media sources around their hostel and surrounding. Maybe they are right for this point, but I know except China, all other countries facing the same problem, and it's not them to blame for your failure. As a professional you should know and learn how to cope with such attention from the public. Unless you hide in a stadium 24-7, you are bound to expose to media attention. Again this shows our players is trying to put the blame on others but themselve.

Motivation camp prior to Thomas and Uber Cup were also be blamed. This camp suppose to help bring their morale high and mentally prepare for the competitions, but in the end, they were blamed as distraction and too close to the competitions. China too had their own Closed-Door training a month prior to the competition, and the training completed just before they board the plane to Malaysia. They still succeed but our own players blamed for too near to the competition? How can this be explained?

They blamed organiser only allowed them to train at Putra stadium few days before the competition started, and coupled with the failure of Nigeria team arrival on time, they were unable to adjust to the stadium's condition. That's the "main" reason they lost to Japan team? I think they over estimated themselve and under estimated Japan's threat.

Players also blamed the media pressure, as well as the nation's high expectation. I wonder what made them think that teams like China, Indonesia, Denmark and Korea do not have pressure from media and nations. All strong teams are expected to progress to at least Finals because their intention is to win! Moreover Malaysia is playing at the own home ground, so to say so indicated that they still mentally not prepare to go to the big stage, whether home or abroad. Players like Lin Dan and Peter Gade Christensen are expected to lead the country's charges by example and this is more pressure than what Malaysia players had.

World No 1, DATUK Lee Chong Wei also said Lin Dan is more well prepared as compare to him, and he blamed the lack of top quality single player in the country resulting his incompetency against Lin Dan. I wonder how many players of Lin Dan's calibre can we find in China as well? Lin Dan is in the class of his own, and he too was personally and specially trained by Tang Shienhu, just like datuk Lee being specially trained by Datuk Misbun. I can't find any different from this, and Datuk Lee is just trying to shred off his responsibility and poor showing from the attention.

This sums up our badminton's future, and with current mental state, I just hope all of you out there better put your interest somewhere else because you will forever wait for our player to win us a major tournaments. Olympic silver and world championship runners up will be the best we could have get. (Datuk Lee and Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock won Olympic silver medals, Wong Choong Han and Cheah-Yap won World Championship runners up). To win again Thomas Cup, Olympic Gold medal, or a World Champions, better dream than hope! MALAYSIA WILL NEVER WIN.