SEPANG, July 15 — National under-19 (U-19) football coach Bojan Hodak is comfortable tagging his team as the underdogs for the U-19 AFC tournament this October.

Hodak said although they were just crowned as the AFF U-19 champions last night, he didn’t want to put any pressure on the players.

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

“The good thing in the AFF championship was that we were not pressured by some high expectation like Indonesia, to win the tournament. They 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, we will start every game like underdogs. I believe that the players have gained more confidence (from the AFF championship win). In the AFC, we will try to go match by match, challenge the opponent, and hopefully surprise them,” he told reporters when met at KLIA2 today.

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, the Croatian coach hopes all the players who have suffered injuries can 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 AFC.

“We will have a tournament in Thailand in September. We hope to have everybody. I hope that Akhyar (Rashid) will recover on 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 the new AFF title, Hodak said he was very satisfied with the players’ performance although he had 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, didn’t 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.

Malaysia finally ended their 16-year wait to win the AFF Under-19 championship after edging Myanmar 4-3 in the final the Gelora Joko Samudro Stadium in Gresik, Indonesia, Saturday night.

Meanwhile, the Croatian coach paid tribute to former FAM president Tunku Mahkota Johor Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim who put him in charge of the U-19 squad.

He also expressed hope that new president Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin and new Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman would give more focus on development programmes to benefit Malaysian football in future.

“The kids need competitive tournaments to improve. I know they (Hamidin and Syed Saddiq) will focus on development, but we will see how they arrange, and put money to invest for the benefit of football in Malaysia,” he added. — Bernama