National football coach K Rajagopal is probably feeling very “hunted” these days following the outcry from certain sections of fans after his team’s defeat to Qatar last Tuesday, in the run-up to the Asian Cup tournament in 2015.

However I, like many silent Malaysians, purely feel that the man has done a splendid job with the Malaysian team till to date, even from the standpoint of Malaysian football history.

If any reasonable Malaysian cares to do a reality check with the history of the Malaysian national football team, it won’t be difficult to realise that since the days of Soh Chin Aun, there was no real credible winning team anywhere until Rajagopal took over the coaching of the Harimau team.

With his guidance, we at least won  two regional tournaments in recent years and brought some prestige to the country, after years of waiting in agony.

Of course, its easy for certain hardcore fans and even certain past players who are now armchair critics and possibly also wannabe future coaches, to spew venom at every opportunity, but the fact remains that Rajagopal has indeed lifted the performance level since those early days of Santokh Singh, Mokhtar Dahari and R Arumugam, while many others, both local and foreign, failed.

Now that Rajagopal's contract ends on Dec 31, 2013 the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) may feel compelled to not extend his contract, but let it be said for the record that this man, Rajagopal, had truly done his duty to the nation by lifting the national team’s performance to the levels of the Middle Eastern nations.

 I sincerely wish him  better days ahead whatever the outcome.

 Thank you, Datuk.