Underdogs label suits Malaysia at AFC U-19 Championship — Hodak

Hodak said he did not want ot put any pressure on his players, who were crowned as AFF U-19 champions on Saturday after edging Myanmar 4-3 in the final at the Gelora Joko Samudro Stadium in Gresik, Indonesia.

However, he admitted that the win against Myanmar in the final had given the players a massive confidence boost.

"The good thing at the AFF Championship was that we were not pressured by some high expectations like Indonesia were to win the tournament.

"[Indonesia] have very good players, but they were just mentally pressured and in the end, they couldn’t win the game [in the semi-final].

"When we go to the AFC [U-19 Championship], we will start every game like underdogs.

I believe that the players have gained more confidence [from the AFF Championship win]. At the AFC tournament, we will try to go match by match, challenge opponents, and hopefully surprise them," the Croatian told reporters upon returning to Malaysia on Sunday.

Hodak said the team would be participating in a tournament in Thailand this September as part of their preparations for the AFC Championship.

On that note, he hoped players with injuries would recover in time for the training.

"I have 14 to 15 names on my mind. We have to see the players that are injured, how fast they can recover, and hope they will be ready for the AFC [competition].

"We will have a tournament in Thailand in September. We hope to have everybody. I hope that Akhyar [Rashid] will recover in time from his shoulder injury,” he added.

Malaysia will face 2016 runners-up Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and China in Group D of the tournament, which kicks off in Jakarta on October 18.

On winning the AFF title, Hodak said he was very satisfied with the players’ performance despite having problems gathering all the players for training and preparation for the championship.

"One of the problems we face is not having enough preparations. We had only two days to gather the full squad [before departing to Surabaya for the AFF Championship].

"We didn’t play together for eight months or have any training in that time. I believe that actually from match to match we are getting better, we are improving our level and at the end, we were the best team in the last two," he said.

Hodak also expressed hope that new Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) president Hamidin Amin and new Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman would give more focus on development programmes to benefit Malaysian football in the future.