The draw for the 33rd SEA Games men's football tournament, taking place at the end of this year in Thailand, put U22 Malaysia in the same group as U22 Vietnam and U22 Laos in Group B.
Malaysian media rates U22 Vietnam as a powerful team, having won the gold medal in men's football at the 30th and 31st SEA Games and just won the 2025 U23 Southeast Asian Championship.
However, the Malaysia U22 coach is very confident that he will get a good result against Vietnam U22 at the 33rd SEA Games. He said: "I am very excited about the SEA Games draw results. We know we are in a challenging group, especially when Vietnam is the champion of AFF 2024. However, that is not a reason why we can't play well.
Most of the Lao players are also in the squad to face Harimau Malaya in the recent 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers".
Nafuzi said that the main goal of U22 Malaysia is to qualify for the semi-finals, before aiming for the next goal. According to the plan, U22 Malaysia will start preparing for the SEA Games at the end of November.
The last time Malaysia won the SEA Games football gold medal was in 2011 in Indonesia after defeating the host on penalties in the final.
Since taking over as coach of the Malaysia U22 team earlier this year, Nafuzi has had encouraging but unstable moments.
At the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship in Indonesia in July, Malaysia started with a 0-2 loss to the Philippines, but made a spectacular comeback with a 7-1 victory over Brunei and held Indonesia to a goalless draw. Then, in the U23 Asian qualifiers, they lost to Lebanon 0-1, beat Mongolia 7-0, but lost 1-2 to Thailand.
The 33rd SEA Games men's football tournament will take place from December 3 to 18, with the group stage held at 3 locations: Bangkok, Songkhla and Chiang Mai. From the semi-finals, the matches will take place at Rajamangala Stadium (Bangkok). The tournament applies the U22 squad regulation (players born from January 1, 2003 onwards), there are no tickets for players over the age of majority. The top three teams and the second-placed teams with the best results will enter the semi-finals.
