Despite persistent uncertainties in Malaysia's ability to participate in international football action in the coming year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Harimau Malaya have been preparing for the near future nevertheless.
On Friday, the Malaysian FA (FAM) and sportswear producer Nike revealed the home and away Malaysia jerseys for 2020 through 2022.
The home kit is a minimalistic yellow top with its collar and arm portions in black, with a black strip running down on each side from the armpit down. According to the press release, it is the first home Malaysia kit to sport a collar, since Nike first became the Malaysia national teams' kitmaker back in 2007.
The away jersey meanwhile adopted the brave design choice of ditching the colours blue, white, yellow and red, the colours of the Malaysian flag, of previous Malaysia away kits, in order to retain the black and yellow of the traditional Malaysia home kit colours.
The away jersey sports diagonal stripes that alternate between black and yellow. Its round neck collar and arm end rings are in yellow.
However, there are fans who are seemingly unhappy with the design choices adopted for the two kits, with many criticising its extreme minimalism and humourous similarity to school sports attires.
Their retail price of RM299 (USD74) has also made them rather unaffordable, when compared to most Malaysian teams' original jerseys.
However, regardless of everyone's opinion on the new kits, surely they agree on one matter; that they want the national team to be able to return to action and put on the jerseys next year, having had their brilliant form in the World Cup Asian qualifiers in 2019 interrupted by the pandemic.
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