East Asia is advancing, but our football is not moving!!

Al - Anbat - Minas Bani Yaseen 

Translated by - Neveen - Al - Jarrah 

In the echoes of the Jordanian football arena, a short time ago, there was news about many Jordanian football players becoming professional in the Malaysian and Thai leagues recently, and this made the Jordanian sports street stop for a moment and wonder about the reasons for the large gap between Jordanian football and East Asian football after the confrontations were Which brings together the two parties tends to the Jordanian foot, and the control of the Jordanian stadium over the course of the meeting and in light of this, "Al-Anbat" conducted an interview with a number of athletes and analysts to search and try to find answers to the questions raised.

In his turn, the former professional player Bahaa Abd Al Rahman in the Malaysian League explained that Jordanian football possesses distinguished raw materials and talents, but the capabilities possessed by East Asian countries have been able to make a big difference and reach modern football, such as infrastructure, facilities, health facilities, fitness centers and swimming pools. They sought to implement modern professionalism, as if the player had a job that he had to perform only, although the Jordanian materials are stronger and more talented, but we lack modern professionalism in its literal sense, in addition to the fact that East Asian countries in their first steps towards modern football were adopting modern European schools, and learning to play a specific school .

He added that as Jordanian football, we lack interest in clubs, pointing out that every club suffers from searching for a sports club to train its players in, except for the lack of a stadium for each club, and he added that the Vietnamese national team has greatly developed its game, and most of the football schools accredited in Malaysia are European schools.

He added that the competent authorities should work on drawing up a long-term plan, explaining that financial support is very important in the process of professionalism, and this is what constitutes a difference between us and Gulf or East Asian football, which is the failure to allocate a specific budget for the development of Jordanian football, although we graduate nearly every season the five Jordanian talents make up a name in the Jordanian league and the national team.

For his part, sports analyst Mutasim Younis told "Al-Anbat" that he does not believe that there is a gap as much as it is a problem in stability, technical calmness, and work on the basic formation of the youth. At the moment, there is still Arab control at the continental level, but there must be greater professionalism and openness to the European school, and this is what East Asian countries did, as they reduced the teams by sending youngsters, opening more academies, and saturating Western European leagues, so we now find that football is the East Asian has a complete professional system, and their patrols are highly professional.

He added that Jordanian football must increase confidence in the local coach, and give him a greater opportunity so that we are not unjust with the answer، there is a clear difference in the size of the material capabilities, and this gives a greater opportunity for development and creation of continuity and stability, indicating that he is not talking about a team only or a club, but rather about A complete system starting from schools and groups, all the way to the youth stages and preparing the players to form a stable, competitive league with no gap between its clubs, so that the distinguished players gather in the entire league clubs and not specific clubs, so that the size of their competitive capabilities does not become less than the clubs in the foreground.

He added that one of the reasons that made the difference significantly was the change in fixing the agenda and rescheduling tournaments in the local football, except for the Corona pandemic, which affected a lot, and that financial support is the most important reason, and there has always been a problem finding sponsors for the local tournaments, indicating that every league in East Asia depends on a specific school and is applied, while Jordanian football still depends on the relationships of players’ agents and coaches and their strength, adding that many coaches from neighboring countries succeeded in Jordanian football and others did not succeed, and the same is the case with the European coach, that is, it is difficult to judge the choice of coaches in absolute terms, and he added that the role of professional value and training experience is what creates the difference in experience, so it is not possible to generalize, and for him it is with giving the local coach the greatest opportunity, especially since we have a large stock of talents and raw materials.

He added that the responsibility is shared, whether from the Football Association, clubs, players, and the media, and this is the duty of everyone to join hands in order to reach the goal and establish the basic rules for the success of the football system, and this requires a long-term plan, and work must be done to build a generation that will be the nucleus of the first team, and most importantly Of all this is finding sponsors who are able to provide material and thus facilitate the task and this is what developed the ball in East Asia.

In the same context, coach Othman Al-Hasanat saw that the idea is that there is interest in the country itself in football, not only as a sport, but more ,indeed the countries of East Asia began to develop the ball by building ten- and twentieth-year plans, and starting with technical plans. They worked to attract European schools in each club and accredit them, and to bring competencies and coaches from this school, and this is what they did, starting with the age groups.

He added to "Al- Anbat" that they insisted in building their plan to reach the stage of modern football and absorb all its aspects, whether inside or outside the stadium, such as marketing, planning, building a system for leagues and professionals, and finding sponsors for leagues and tournaments, but the difference is that Jordanian football does not have an infrastructure. It lacks professionalism, except that the recruitment of coaches is not at the required level, and that investment in football is weak and requires greater attention to marketing, planning and implementation, and all of these aspects are unstable.

Regarding the first step, he indicated that the state must start and increase its interest in Jordanian sports, provide government support, build a long-term plan and strategy, and force clubs to build age groups correctly and pay attention to them.

And he added that East Asian football relied on attracting an entire school, and building training academies even to train their local coaches, in addition to their interest in modern technology and its introduction into football, and he explained that the most important need for football is the availability of stadiums, and this is what local football lacks, as we only have 3 grass fields ,for training, and the rest of the training stadiums are tartan stadiums, and this is what hurts the players the most, in addition to the importance and necessity of having training and rehabilitation centers and starting to specialize in football as a study in universities so that local football is not just a hobby, and for the workers in it not to be volunteers, nothing more.