Height ≠ Talent

It's often mentioned in the papers that our athletes (particularly footballers) lack the neccessary physicality to make it in the modern game. A good case in point would be the World Cup qualifiers against Singapore where a bulky Qiu Li absolutely scared the pants out of our defenders. Perhaps they suffered from a mental breakdown, but sometimes three or four people caught ball watching as that fella sleepwalked through our entire defence.

Now I wouldn't really blame them because really the Singapore strikers, our defenders looked positively tiny in comparison.

But here I am to dispel some myths.

Fabio Cannavaro. Italy's World Cup winning defender. Height: 1.77m.

Rafael da Silva. Right back for Manchester United. Height: 1.73m.

Carles Puyol. Spain's World Cup winning defender. Height: 1.78m.

Philipp Lahm. German captain. Height: 1.70m.

Now when we compare that to the likes of:

Muslim Ahmad or Asraruddin Putra Omar (who are both 1.80m) or even Fadhli Shas (who is 1.79m), we can see that Malaysians shouldn't really use lack of physicality as an excuse. Qiu Li was a bit on the fat side, which made him look way bigger, but that's something that can be rectified if our boys put in some gym time.

Sure, it would be nice if we could have someone like Per Mertesacker around, but we don't.

The obscenely tall Per Mertesacker

However, the fact that we're small should not mean we lack the ability. So next time you lot come up against a brute a'la Qiu Li, just friggin' push the dude over.