FIFA rankings don't discourage Malaysia despite being stuck at 171st

 

Assistant coach Brad Maloney says that the FIFA rankings will eventual reflect Malaysia's recent improvement.

Malaysia's national team say they aren't discouraged by the latest FIFA rankings which leaves them in their lowest ever position of 171st in the world.
Despite October victories over Laos and Timor Leste, the Malaysians failed to rise up the list of the world's football nations.
But assistant national boss Brad Maloney predicted that it would only be a matter of time before recent improved performances reflected on the FIFA list.
"We understand it will take time as the way the rankings are calculated it does take into account previous year's results," Maloney told ESPN FC.
"However we are very positive moving forward."

After making the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup final, Malaysia had to wait until October for their first win of 2015.

After a serious of poor results, including a 10-0 defeat to the United Arab Emriates and 6-0 losses to Palestine and Oman that led to the departure of previous coach Dollah Salleh, Malaysia broke through for their first wins of the year last month. They defeated Laos 3-1 in a friendly in Bangkok on Oct. 8 before edging past Timor Leste 1-0 in an AFC World Cup qualifier in Dili five days later.
Next week, they will face Palestine in Jordan and the UAE at Shah Alam Stadium in their next two qualifying matches.
Maloney added: "We are determined to raise our FIFA ranking and are pleased with last month's results against Laos and Timor Leste. Hopefully, we will earn more ranking points in the upcoming games."
Malaysia's regional rivals, Singapore, jumped five spots in the latest rankings to 152nd, 19 places above Ong Kim Swee's team.
"It's a complicated method of calculating the rankings but obviously we would like to be higher in Southeast Asia, as well as the rest of the world," Maloney said.