“We played for Malaysia, for the team, and not for ourselves.” – Namat Abdullah, former national defender.

Every time the two late Penang-born football heroes spoke to the media, they launched those words that never failed to inspire, given that they had contributed immeasurably to the sporting dreams of the nation.

Their reflections on football, patriotism and national identity come to the fore again in the second episode of the television documentary, We Were Champions, tonight.

The interviews with them were done in 2019 but Namat died in December, 2020, aged 74, and Kuppan passed away in the same month a year later at 84.

The six half-hour episodes of We Were Champions chronicle 12 Malaysian champions who lit a spark in their sport, some of them enduring heartbreaks, in the 1960s to the 1990s.

Kuppan and Namat saw the power of football as a force for good on many levels. They saw sport as a nation builder.

Namat said his pride and loyalty came from putting on the national team jersey. His, as right-back, was No 4.

They helped shape Malaysian football, and their commitment to the game, courage and patience were exactly what you would expect from those who rose to the top from humble beginnings.

The giants of the game said in We Were Champions interviews they had no complaints although there was no time for enjoyment and that their focus was on hard work and sacrifices to bring glory to the nation and to their families.

Kuppan recalled with humour an act of sacrifice that he had to make on the eve of his wedding in 1962.

He said he had a crucial match to play in Kuala Lumpur and only arrived at his house in Bukit Mertajam by taxi about two hours before his wedding, causing anxiety to his bride and others.

Both men came from big and poor families. Kuppan was the eldest of eight children and his father and mother were rubber tappers.

Butterworth-born Namat was the eldest of nine children and his brother Shaharuddin was in the same squad with him at the 1972 Munich Olympics while another brother, Ridzuan, featured for the state team.

His uncle, Aziz Ahmad, was a state centre forward in the 50s and some of his contemporaries included Kuppan and the Pang brothers, Seang Teik and Seang Hock.

Kuppan was paid RM2 as training allowance with the state team and RM5 for national duty and got his boots from local cobblers like Chip Bee on Chulia Street on the island.

As a student at Bukit Mertajam High School, his football master bought him his first pair of boots and ensured he got good food during recess.

In 1957, he turned out for the Penang Combined Schools football team in a curtain raiser for the Penang-Selangor Malaya Cup match at City Stadium, which was built a year earlier.

He saw some of his idols like M Govindarajoo, Edwin Dutton and Sexton Lourdes in action for Selangor and a year later, the young man with blistering speed, who flew past the crunching tackles of defenders, was in the national team with them.

His teammates in the Malaysian squad included legends like Abdul Ghani Minhat, Stanley Gabriel, Chan Tuck Choy, Robert Choe, Arthur Koh, Ng Boon Bee and Rahim Omar.

Kuppan lifted the Malaya Cup in his first season with Penang in 1958 after beating Singapore in a penalty shootout. That year, he made the national team that won the Merdeka tournament.

Namat was playing football with his brothers and friends when Kuppan helped Malaya win the Seap (now Sea) Games football title by beating hosts Burma 2-0 in 1961.

Kuppan went on to become a member of the first Malaysian team in 1964 that featured Singaporeans RW Skinner, Majid Ariff, Quah Kim Siak and Quah Kim Swee.

The former Penang Port Commission clerk represented the country for eight years until 1965, featuring in three Merdeka Tournament winning teams in 1958, 1959 and 1961 and 10 seasons for Penang.

For former prisons officer Namat who got his first international cap in 1970, the Munich Olympics two years later was the highpoint of his football career.

Tomorrow marks 50 years since Malaysia’s 3-0 loss to mighty West Germany in the opening match at the Olympics, and Namat recalled the referee saying, “you play like Brazil”, after the scoreless first half.

The sturdy Namat often spoke about how difficult it was for him to mark forward Uli Hoeness, who later became a professional with Bayern Munich and represented his country 35 times.

After beating the USA 3-0 in the second match, Jalil Che Din-led Malaysia only needed to beat Morocco to reach the second round on Aug 31 but their Independence Day celebration was foiled by a 6-0 thrashing.

Kuppan did not need much more in his CV having coached the likes of Namat, Shaharuddin, Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Ann, Santokh Singh, R Arumugam, Shukor Salleh, Isa Bakar and Ali Bakar.

Namat could not have asked for a more glowing testimonial than this from Kuppan: “Namat was my favourite captain. He was very disciplined, very sincere and really meant business on the field.”

With Kuppan as coach and Namat as captain, Penang won the Malaysia Cup in 1974, their last title in the competition. To Namat, it was “war” against Perak whom they beat 2-1 at home.

During Kuppan’s tenure as the Malaysian team coach from 1972 to 1978, Namat became the national captain briefly in 1973 when M Chandran was injured.

Together, they would go on to win the bronze in the 1974 Asian Games in Tehran and lift the Merdeka Cup once in 1976 and the Thailand King’s Cup twice in 1975 and 1976.

Both Kuppan and Namat, who were conferred the title of Datuk, continue to command wide respect from fellow Penangites as reflected in a mural by cartoonist Azmi Hussin at the City Stadium in George Town, starring them and other state football icons.

Last month, the Penang government renamed a road in Butterworth after Kuppan, a first in the state for a football great. The road was chosen as Kuppan used to train and coach at St Mark’s school field, which is adjacent to the road, when he was a player and coach.

It was also one of the places where he got mobbed by fans, just as they did at the railway station and at the airport when he left for Kuala Lumpur for national duty.

Younger readers will simply have to take it on trust that seeing Kuppan and Namat play was such an event in itself.

Catch the exploits of M Kuppan and Namat Abdullah over We Were Champions at 10.30 tonight on Sukan RTM Channel 111 Myfreeview.