KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 12 — The year 2024 represents a crucial juncture for the national football squad as they navigate a transition to sustain the drive of their revival while also participating in esteemed tournaments to restore the Harimau Malaya’s legacy.

With Kim Pan Gon entering his third year as the national team's coach, Malaysia demonstrated improvement in performance and football identity, although the true challenge lay ahead in contests against Asia's football giant Malaysia's greatest accomplishment this year was its involvement in the 2023 Asian Cup Finals held in Doha, Qatar, in January, with the event acting as a standard to assess the national team’s capacity to compete against top Asian squads such as Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.


Despite expectations that they would advance to the knockout stages, Pan Gon’s squad, which featured both heritage and naturalized players, finished the group phase at the bottom of Group E without securing a victory after losing their initial two games — 4-0 against Jordan and 1-0 against Bahrain.