Back for a good cause (The Malay Mail)

FORMER national midfielder Lim Teong Kim (left), now in Germany, will
return to Malaysia on Tuesday to coach.
 Teong Kim, who attained the German A Licence last year after being in
Germany for over two years, will be the head coach of the FA of Malaysia
academies from Feb 1.
 And the man instrumental for his return is none other than Datuk Ahmad
Basri Mohamad Akil, one of the four FA of Malaysia vice-presidents and
chairman of the Youth Development Department.
 Teong Kim, who had earlier applied to coach M-League teams like Kedah,
Kuala Lumpur and Negri Sembilan, had also expressed an interest to work on
youth development, be it at State or national level.
 While the State FAs did not take Teong Kim seriously, it was Ahmad Basri
who pushed for the latter's recruitment as he realised the potential of
Teong Kim's contribution to soccer development in the country.
 Holger Obermann, the head coach and technical chairman of the FAM youth
department, is another man, who was in full support of Teong Kim's return
to join FAM.
 Obermann had also played a key role in assisting Teong Kim in sitting
for the A Licence in Germany and also an attachment with Bayern Munich.
 Teong Kim could eventually take over Obermann's position in FAM when the
latter, who is here on a German Government Programme, eventually leaves.
 Teong Kim, who has a German wife and three children, had recently
pointed out that local coaches should equip themselves with better
knowledge of the game and his comments did not go down well with many
local coaches.
 He said local coaches, who lacked knowledge of the game and were not
exposed to high level international competitions, would find it tough to
bring out the best from the players and motivating them.
 Teong Kim said he did not mean to belittle local coaches, but hoped to
see improvement in the coaching aspects in Malaysia.
 Now that he will be back to help groom the youngsters, he will have an
opportunity to put his experience to good use.
 However, he needs the cooperation of all academy coaches throughout the
country to come up with a successful programme.
                              (END)