'Lower budget won't deter our trophy hunt' - Aidil Sharin reveals blueprint to Kedah's hunt for silverware in 2021 (exclusive)

New season, new beginning, new hope.

The 2020 season was one of turmoil for Kedah to say the least. From the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, to the financial cloud that casted a dark shadow on the entire squad, things just did not go according to plan.

Even head coach Aidil Sharin Sahak was feeling weighted by the latter issue and, at one point, looked to be heading for the exit door.

However, Kedah’s form took an ascending turn following the resumption of football in Malaysia late August last year and Aidil eventually managed to guide his team to a second place finish in the Super League, which earned them an automatic spot in this year’s AFC Cup competition.

Recharged after the end of the 2020 season, Aidil is now bent on bringing home another trophy for the rebranded Kedah Darul Aman (KDA) FC for the 2021 campaign.

Fences also began to mend from a management point of view and with a new group being put in charge of the club, Aidil was persuaded to continue his project at Kedah, not least with plenty of persuasive power from the men and boys he’s in charge of.

“It’s the players, honestly,” said Aidil in an exclusive interview with  Goal . “When I spoke with some of the players, they are the ones who told me to stay on for another because last year was not a complete year. The players wanted me to stay and that I was touched by that. 

"There’s a lot of improvement with the new management, which also plays a part."

Sports Regime

When Aidil arrived at Kedah in 2019, he came on the back of two years of impressive form in the AFC Cup competition with then Home United FC, now known as Lion City Sailors FC.

Impressively he straight away lifted his first major trophy on Malaysian soil in his very first season by beating Perak in the FA Cup final.

Hoping to build on that success and looking to push even closer to reigning Super League champions Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT), Aidil brought in the likes of Shahril Saari, Tchetche Kipre, Kpah Sherman, Irfan Zakaria and Hadin Azman to bolster the 2020 squad. Performance would show that he had more hits than misses with the signings.

“When I came in 2019, we changed a lot. We only retained nine players from the 2018 squad. We brought in a lot of youngsters like Fayadh, Danel and Hidhir to blend with the set of new foreigners," Aidil explained. 

"Then in 2020, I changed 12 players which was half the squad. Hadin, Irfan, Zulhairy and Shahril all came in. It was my second year and I wanted to win something.

“But unfortunately, we only came close. You can see from the first game against JDT, we had our moments and dominated periods of that match. But because of financial issues, we lost to Terengganu and drew with UiTM at the beginning. If not because of that, we could have been even closer to JDT. 

“Then we had a big focus for the cups, but in the end that didn’t happen either. I was very serious about 2020 in trying to win something. After we won one and lost another final in 2019, I wanted to build on that in 2020. In the Malaysia Cup, we had beaten Pahang and stood a good chance of making it to the final.”

Sports Regime

Now comes another pre-season where the squad rebuilding and improvement carries on, but unlike past seasons, Aidil was faced with the prospect of financial restrictions, which meant that he could not keep the ones he wanted to as well as not being able to get bigger targets that he would have liked.

“In 2021, we as coaches and players will always want to win something, but we have to be mindful that we have cut our cost a lot," the Kedah coach continued. 

"We can’t buy players like what we did in 2020. In fact, we had to cut a lot of players because of the reduced budget. I can say that we cut RM4.5 million compared to 2019, a month is around RM400,000 which is a lot. 

“Hadin wasn’t in my plans. He is expensive and didn’t perform to what I would have liked. Shakir (Hamzah) wasn’t in my plans because I prefer a foreigner in the middle instead of a left back. Only Irfan and Azri (Ghani) we wanted to keep but they chose to take a better offer outside. And we have to let go of senior players who are earning a lot like Khairul Helmi and Zaquan (Adha).

“We were given a budget to spend and when we register, we can’t even register 30 players. We only have 25 players even with some younger players coming up. It’s a huge difference with a big cut, but I’m thankful that we managed to keep the core players.”

With the limitations in place, Aidil and the KDA management had to be more prudent and careful with their transfer strategy and in came the likes of Rodney Celvin Akwensivie (loan), Rozaimi Abdul Rahman, Rabih Ataya, Syazwan Zainon, Ilham Amirullah Razali and Anumanthan Kumar.

Rodney is a shoo-in to be Irfan’s replacement at centre back to play alongside Renan Alves with the experienced Syazwan Tajudin providing cover in that position. Aidil played an important role in making Irfan into one of the best centre backs in the league last season and there’s no reason to doubt the same can be done with Rodney.

Malaysia Football League

But it is the attacking signings that capture most of the attention. Ataya was a standout performer with minnows UiTM FC in 2020 and the Lebanese will bring with him the guile and excitement that KDA will stand to benefit in the coming season.

“Ataya was the first player that I really wanted to bring to Kedah and I’m grateful that we managed to do it. We needed someone who can change the game and already have experience in Malaysia, that is something missing in the team. We tried in the past with Jonathan Bauman but he wasn’t consistent after his injury.

“Then we brought in Amin Nazari last season but not the best because of the salary issue and it’s hard to blame the player. He was also out for two months because of Covid-19 and he lost around 8kg during that time. That is where we want to strengthen for 2021 and that’s where Ataya comes in.

“I could have brought in someone else from overseas but with the quarantine and everything, it would have been quite hard to get approval. At the end, Ataya fit everything we wanted and that’s why we got him.”

While Ataya was someone which Aidil looked closely at and knew that he wanted the player, the same cannot be said of Rozaimi. It was more of a chance opportunity that arose and Aidil swiftly made the decision to sign the former Johor Darul Ta’zim II and Sabah forward.

It has been eight long years since the sport has been able to see the best of Rozaimi and the way he burst onto the scene back in 2012 with Sabah and the subsequent amazing performances for the Malaysia full senior team as well as the Under-23 side, he immediately became the country’s most prized and promising forward.

While his talent has never been in any doubt, Rozaimi has not been able to continue his rise to prominence due to persistent injuries. With the Malaysia national team always in search of credible forwards to join the fray, a lot of attention will be on Rozaimi and how his 2021 season gets on at Kedah.

Izzat Akmal

“Honestly in the beginning, Rozaimi wasn’t in our plans because we know normally a player at JDT wouldn’t want to go out. But news came that he was out, he called me personally and told me he wants to play for Kedah and was willing to take a huge pay cut, which came as a surprise to me. 

“Straightaway I told him that I want him. I knew this boy even when he was with JDTII, I knew he has something special. A little bit like Ataya also, a left footer. Very good in set pieces. A player who can create and score goals. What we will work more on him is his workrate because the intensity in Premier League and Super League is totally different.

“When we did everyday training, he was on par with the other players. But we need to see him in games, whether he can cope in the higher league. We need him to play a lot of games with the team so that he can adapt and can know the situation.

"All I can say is that attacking wise, I’m not worried about my team because we have Alex (Azamuddin Akil), Syazwan Zainon, Farhan Roslan, Rabih Ataya. We can rotate with the squad we have. 

“For Rozaimi, we need to give him time but it will be better for him to be able to play as fast as possible with the team as we want to see him fight for a place in the first 11.”

With the new Super League season only getting underway in March, it could be a season where Aidil could deal with plenty of ups and downs as he goes in search of his second major trophy in Malaysia. Yet, before a ball has been kicked in anger, he already has something to look forward to.

In the AFC Cup, KDA have been drawn with Saigon FC and Lion City Sailors, with Persipura Jayapura likely to be the final qualifier for Group H. Which gives Aidil an opportunity to face his former side in Lion City Sailors, one that is almost completely unrecognisable from the one he left at the end of 2018.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Group H is the toughest and most difficult of the three Southeast Asian groups in the AFC Cup for the 2021 season. Familiarity aside, Aidil understands how much Lion City Sailors have changed and sees them as more than a viable challenger to KDA in their search to advance to the latter stages of the competition.

Lion City Sailors

“There’s good and bad. Once you know 90 per cent of the players because they have been my players before, you know their strengths and weaknesses. But let’s not forget that they know that they will play against their ex-coach and they will want to show something as well. So they will raise their level.

“This is where it can be dangerous. They have dangerous players in Gabriel Quak, Shahdan (Sulaiman) and Faris Ramli who all have experience of playing against Malaysian teams. They can do damage to us. For me, I’m very excited but most important is to have that good run in the league leading up to the start of the AFC Cup group matches.

“They’ve changed a lot financially because during my time, I did not get to spend what they are currently able to spend now. In my time, I only got to play with two foreigners and their salaries were only USD5,000, both players (Stipe Plazibat and Song Ui-young) are there now too. 

“Now they have two more European players with one of them being a big transfer from the Portuguese league and they are likely to be on around USD40,000 a month. Which is the same as what the coach is getting, five times more than what I got last time.

“They are making a lot of good changes with new facilities. Almost all the national players are in their team, so in the league, they could be like JDT. They will be dominant in the league and now they will be turning their focus to the AFC Cup for sure.”