Malaysian media said it was a national disaster while in the Philippines, it was compared to Brazil losing to the Falklands.
For Malaysia’s head coach Rahim Abdullah, the solitary 84th minute goal was a ridiculously easy one in a performance, he said, was entirely out of character with his team.
Rahim suspected some of his players had rigged the match but he had no evidence. On his return, he needed to be heard, but nobody listened.
He came up against the ‘look the other way’ FA of Malaysia (FAM) leadership. He stood virtually alone against them, and lost.
Until today he bears the shame of being the coach of the first Malaysian team to lose to the Philippines, then the whipping boys in the region.
Ironically, Rahim’s deputy, Bakri Ibni, had assisted the Filipinos only five months before the crushing defeat in the group stage.
They were guests at a FAM development camp after being trounced 5-0 by Malaysia in a Barcelona Olympics qualifying round match.
In practice matches, even the Royal Malaysia Police, coached by Rahim, beat the Filipinos.
It was, therefore, understandable that some of the Philippines players embraced Bakri immediately after the match.
Thirty-two years on, Rahim, a former police superintendent, is still sore that his players took him and the fans for a ride.
“What some of them did was a disservice to the nation,” Rahim, 76, said in an interview ahead of the Dec 9 Sports Flame event, a celebration of Malaysian sporting greats from the 60s, 70s and early 80s.
The event, supported by FMT, is organised by four sports journalists from that era – George Das, R Velu, Lazarus Rokk and Fauzi Omar – who have written about Rahim and the other icons in various newspapers and in mysportsflame.com.
Reluctant Rahim
Rahim said he took great pride in being a member of the first and only Malaysian football team that has played in the Olympics, the 1972 Munich Games.
“At the same time, I will always have to live with the disgrace of being the coach of the first Malaysian team to lose to the Philippines,” he lamented.
Rahim said he had initially rejected the offer for the SEA Games job from then FA of Malaysia (FAM) technical director, the late N Raju, because he wasn’t ready.
But he was compelled to change his mind by a top FAM official on the basis of his excellent track record in the domestic league with the police team.
To his dismay, it was disaster from day one, with certain officials meddling in the team’s tune-up.
Both Rahim and Bakri didn’t get to apply their ideas because Raju took the training sessions, and ran the team.
He said when a study tour of Europe came up, Raju jumped on it and dumped the team on them.
Rahim and Bakri left for Manila with a squad they had little influence over.
If that wasn’t bad, the team manager, the late Bakar Daud, dictated the lineup on match days, and made changes on the pitch.
Rahim said Bakar had also insisted on fielding players who had not been serious in training or were unfit.
Asked why he did not go against Bakar, he said: “I was a new coach, and he was part of the FAM big brass.”
Cover-up of Manila debacle
Rahim said despite him knowing some players were not honest in the match against the Philippines, his hands were tied by officialdom.
He said he strongly believed “foul play” caused the humiliating defeat by the hosts, but was prevented from officially reporting it to FAM.
Rahim was told the then FAM president Sultan Ahmad Shah, “wouldn’t like to hear that, if it wasn’t backed by strong evidence.”
So he never raised his strong suspicion of match-fixing, and officials’ interferences in team handling and tactics, in his report to the FAM council.
He just told the council that Harimau Malaya did not have good strikers, because in the semi-professional league the forwards were mainly foreigners, who deprived local players of the opportunity.
Rahim said his distrust of some of the players in match-fixing was confirmed when they were arrested in 1994 for throwing matches in the Malaysia Cup and the Malaysia Premier League.
The bribery scandal led to the arrests of 230 players and officials and destroyed Malaysian football.
The match between the Philippines and Malaysia in the 2019 Manila SEA Games, at the same venue, felt like a cover version of the 1991 fiasco, with the hosts winning 1-0.
Some good memories
Rahim, a small town boy from Nibong Tebal, Penang, went from playing football barefoot as a schoolboy to an Olympian.
In the early 1970s, he won the Malaysia Cup with Selangor (four times), Perak (once), and was in the national team that beat Kuwait 3-1 to capture the Merdeka Cup in 1973.
Initially, Rahim represented Penang in the Malaysia Cup as left winger before he got a place on the right flank with Harimau Malaya.
He said he was surprised he was in the starting lineup in the opening 1972 Olympics match against West Germany as “coach Jalil Che Din didn’t quite like me because I didn’t call him ‘Tuan’, as he was a prison officer then.”
But he was in the good books of the team manager Harun Idris and German Dettmar Cramer, who was adviser to Jalil for the Olympics.
Rahim said he picked up a yellow card, and Jalil substituted him in the 70th min. Malaysia lost 3-0 to the Germans, after holding them to a goalless draw in the first half.
In 2004, he was inducted into the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s Hall of Fame along with other members of the Munich Olympics team.
His regrets: bowing out of the national team at the age of 25 because of serious injuries; not being in control of the 1991 Sea Games squad; and not being able to expose the truth about meddling officials, and dishonest players.
Until today, Rahim feels ashamed and angry when people talk to him about that defeat by the Philippines. “I feel angry because it was all beyond our control.”
“To make matters worse, I never received a letter of thanks from FAM for my services as national coach,” said a dejected Rahim.