Myanmar’s Golden Age

They were called the “White Angels”, because of the colour of their kit, and between 1965 and 1973 they won every Southeast Asian football championship, were one of the region’s most successful sides and brought pride and joy to their adoring Burmese fans.

The White Angels, who played in the 1972 Munich Olympics where they won the Fair Play award, gave Myanmar its much-remembered “Golden Age” of football glory; an era that produced the “Burmese Pele”; striker and captain Suk Bahadur.

It was during this Golden Age that the team made their only appearance at the Asian Cup finals, at Tehran in 1968. Competing as Burma in the round-robin tournament, the team came runners-up to the hosts, Iran.

This silver medal effort was bookended by two golds at the continental equivalent of the Olympics; the 1966 and 1970 Asian Games, both held in Bangkok. The Golden Age also saw Burma win five consecutive titles at the Southeast Asia Peninsula Games, as well as recording multiple victories at invitational tournaments in South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia.

After 1968, the national side withdrew from every successive Asian Cup qualifying tournament until 1996 and did not enter the World Cup until 2007. In 1975, Burma were knocked from the top of the ASEAN sporting pedestal, managing only a bronze at the SEAP Games in Bangkok. After 1975, the national side played fewer international games in the 32 years to 2008 than they did in the 11 years of the glory days from 1965–75.

On May 19, Myanmar was to embark on its best chance since 1996 of qualifying in the Asian Cup when it faced host side, the Maldives, at Malé’s Galolhu National Stadium, in the AFC Challenge Cup, a tournament that has provided the minnows of Asian football with a backdoor opportunity to qualify for Australia 2015.

With Myanmar fans fervently hoping that the match in Malé will mark the dawn of a new era of glory for the national side, Mizzima Business Weekly spoke to three players from the Golden Age to ask why they were so successful and how might Myanmar recover those highs?

For the team, for the country

“That was one of the legends on the phone,” said U Myo Win Nyunt, 67, defender and defensive midfield giant of the Burmese national side from 1967–1977, after a phone call interrupted the interview. The caller was Golden Age goalkeeper U Tin Aung.

Arriving the next day at the modest wooden home of U Ba Pu, 72, Golden Age left winger in the 4–2–4 formations of 1964–70, he greeted me with, “One of the legends was here this morning and you just missed him.” He was speaking of teammate U Tin Aye, a winger.

Clearly these men are still close and U Ba Pu saw this as a key difference with the modern game. “The current players are good but they do not have the unity and the will; back then we did not earn much but there was a desire to win,” he said.

U Aye Maung Gyi, 64, central midfielder from 1966–74 and the chief executive officer of Zwekapin United FC agreed.

“This is a team game, we had players that played well together as one, we had a strong understanding of each other and a spirit; now it is not the same,” U Aye Maung Gyi said. “When I say this was how we once played, the modern players say, ‘oh this is the old system’, I say some things may change but this should be the same,” said U Aye Maung Gyi, pointing to his heart as he spoke.

“They should want to win, for our game, for the country. Now when they lose, they just say sorry coach, but our aim was always to win … we were successful, because this was for our country and we wanted to be role models.”

Education and development — where it all went wrong

The Golden Age arguably began with a victory at the 1961 AFC Asian Youth Championships in Thailand. That victory marked the start of the Burma side’s dominance over the tournament for the next 11 years, during which time they triumphed seven times and finished outside the top three only once.

Some of the players were included in both the senior and junior squads for a number of years. They included U Myo Win Nyunt, who missed out on the 1968 Asian Cup tournament in Iran because he joined about six of his team mates to travel to South Korea and win gold at the Asian Youth Championships. When U Aye Maung Gyi turned 16 he was selected for Upper Myanmar Schools, Mandalay Division Seniors, the national youth team and the national senior team all in one year.

U Aye Maung Gyi’s meteoric rise wasn’t necessarily the norm, as U Myo Win Nyunt explained.

“At that time all our national players progressed through the different levels of football, first youth football, then quarter and districts,” U Myo Win Nyunt said.

“Slowly their skill and technique developed and a pathway to the national youth and senior teams was created,” he said.

“Through many tournaments we developed match experience and this was a huge component in our later success.

“Another factor was our school football; all students, all schools would play and classification would be based on height rather than age. We would have inter-school tournaments at state and divisional level with the best players chosen to travel to Yangon and represent the regional team. The truly outstanding players would then be identified and introduced to national league teams.”

U Myo Win Nyunt lamented the disappearance of this structure as a major contributing factor to the downfall of Burmese football.

“Sometime between 1970 -74 they stopped,” he said.

“There had been fighting and quarrelling between the schools at the tournaments; I think they [football administrators] were worried this might lead to bigger problems and so as a security measure, the tournaments stopped.”

U Ba Pu agreed that the disintegration of the state and regional competition structures was a factor behind the sunset of the Golden Age but said the damage was compounded by the gradual disappearance of pitches.

“In the townships, there were once many good playing fields, but in the mid-70s the city developers began to build on them; the Ministry of Sport does nothing and now the pitches that do exist have no grass,” U Ba Pu said.

“How can we be successful when we lack the infrastructure?” he said. “Back then we were good players because we learnt the game, now the youth want to play football but they have nowhere to play.”

International isolation

U Myo Win Nyunt, U Ba Pu and U Aye Maung Gyi agreed that another reason why the national side went into decline after 1974–75 was a shortage of quality players.

All three took on coaching roles. U Ba Pu coached at club level, U Aye Maung Gyi was head coach of the national side from 1982 to 1987 and from 1998 to 2002, and U Myo Win Nyunt had the top job in 1996–7, the year Myanmar re-entered the Asian Cup.

Their experience as coaches of the national team has given U Aye Maung Gyi and U Myo Win Nyunt insights into why it all but disappeared from the world of international football.

“At that time Myanmar football became insular, we were only playing against each other and players from other countries began to move between nations,” said U Aye Maung Gyi. “In our time we were much better than Thailand but they learnt how to develop their football. They established specialist academies with foreign experts such as the Beckenbauer academy,” he said.

During the Golden Age, U Sein Hlaing, national coach of the Youth and Senior sides from 1962–1976, was assisted by some foreign coaches, including the great Bert Trautmann, who helped lead the team during 1972–74 as part of a development programme run by the German Football Association.

U Myo Win Nyunt recalled that Trautman was the last of the foreign coaches until the Serbian Ratomir Dujkovi? joined him as head coach in 1996.

As the national team regularly withdrew from qualification for international tournaments, it became increasingly isolated.

“We trained, trained, trained and if we had gone and lost by one or two goals, OK, never mind, but what if we had lost big, we would embarrass ourselves, the government would be angry, football would stop and we’d be finished; this was our worry,” said U Aye Maung Gyi.

“Our team was no longer strong, so we didn’t go,” said U Myo Win Nyunt. “They [football administrators] wanted to keep our image as a good footballing nation I think; if we went away and lost, people would ask what has happened, what is our football federation doing,” he said.

Financial constraints may have also played a part in the decisions to withdraw from international tournaments, said U Myo Win Nyunt.

“I think maybe there were also financial problems, maybe they thought while our team was not of a high standard, to play away from home was just not worth the money,” he said.

During the Golden Age, qualification for the Asian Cup and the Olympic finals included tournaments played in the then Burma. But after 1971, the hosting of foreign teams also dried up. Until 1996, there were only four international games played on home soil, a 3–1 defeat of India in 1986 and a triangular tournament with Sri Lanka and winners Bangladesh in 1995.

U Ba Pu said that not inviting more foreign sides to play also had a role in the national team’s downward spiral.

“Other countries didn’t have good players, but they didn’t care about the results, they were happy to develop the experience,” he said.

The return of a new ‘Golden Age’?

U Myo Win Nyunt, U Ba Pu and U Aye Maung Gyi concurred that rebuilding an internationally competitive national side will not happen overnight. They said the anger and frustration that followed the early exit of the men’s side from the Southeast Asian Games last year after a 1–0 defeat to Indonesia was a symptom of the unrealistic expectations of Myanmar fans.

“Before 2009 we were playing amateur football, only now we are professional; most of the owners are interested in their clubs and are paying good money,” said U Myo Win Nyunt, who volunteers as a match commissioner in the Myanmar National League.

“To begin with, the teams were playing well and many people were watching the games but after the 2009, 2011 and 2013 SEA games, crowd numbers have declined; after the poor result in 2013, they have lost interest in our players,” he said.

“In ten years’ time we will have a national team or a youth team that can mount a realistic challenge. You have to start from the bottom and rebuild the paths that lead to the national team.”

“It has to start with the youth development,” agreed U Aye Maung Gyi, adding that MFF president U Zaw Zaw was working hard “to get sport back into the schools.”

All three legends were keen to praise the efforts of U Zaw Zaw, the MFF president since 2005, for his efforts to revitalise the game.

“Back then if a player was injured he had to take care of himself, now U Zaw Zaw takes care of everything,” said U Ba Pu, referring to the tycoon’s personal financial investment in the sport.

“He is trying his best and he is the reason we have football in Myanmar,” said U Ba Pu. “I really want to praise him but the federation and the Ministry of Sport work separately and the Ministry of Sport doesn’t do anything,” he said.

U Ba Pu, U Aye Maung Gyi and U Myo Win Nyunt agreed that the AFC Challenge Cup opportunity in the Maldives had probably come too soon for the developing national side and qualification for the Asian Cup 2015 is probably out of their reach.

In the opinion of the three legends, the path to a new Golden Age will start with Myanmar’s hosting of the U19 Asian Championship in October, the contemporary equivalent of the Asian Youth Championship that in the early 1960s was the catalyst for Burma’s success.

“Myanmar lost its track for a long time, it will take time to rebuild and we should focus on the youth,” said U Ba Pu.

This Article first appeared in the May 22, 2014 edition of Mizzima Business Weekly.

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