Kuala Lumpur: Misbun Sidek hoped his return to Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) as men’s singles coach would lay the foundations for current and future success of Malaysian shuttlers.
After leaving the BAM fold about 6 years ago, the Malaysian badminton icon joined BAM players at the Badminton Academy Malaysia (ABM) in Bukit Kiara for his first day as their new men’s singles coach on Monday.
“Chong Wei wants me back, we have good facilities and coaches as well as world class players like Chong Wei to spar with … so there is no excuse for doing badly,” Sidek told the players.
Besides helping Lee Chong Wei to win his maiden World Championships title, Sidek also admitted he faced a huge challenge ahead in order to resuscitate the badminton program in Malaysia, and to develop players that could compete against shuttlers from other countries.
“I will be helping Chong Wei to prepare for the World Championships,” said Sidek.
“It’s going to be a huge task to revive the Malaysian shuttlers. But I like challenges. I’ve informed the players they would either make it or break it under the new coaching system. We will create customized Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for each player and evaluate their performances individually,” added Sidek.
“I can see we have a lot of talent here. Some of the players are fit but not smart enough, and some are very skillful but lazy. They’ll need to have Chong Wei’s attitude, passion for the sport and work really hard.”
However, Misbun told reporter he would need one week to assess the players before making any recommendations.
