Kuala lumpur: Malaysia have been drawn in Group B alongside world-ranked 18th Iran for the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Nations Cup 2025 which will be held in August. The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) in a statement announced that apart from Iran, Harimau Malaya under coach Peter Cklamovski, who are ranked 131st in the world, will also face hosts Tajikistan (ranked 104th in the world) and Afghanistan (160th).
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the schedule reveals that Malaysia will open the campaign against Tajikistan on August 29, followed by Iran on September 1 and Afghanistan on September 4 with all three matches taking place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Meanwhile, Group A will take place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan featuring four other teams, namely hosts Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, and Oman. Only the winner of each group will qualify for the final scheduled to be held in Tashkent on September 8, while the runners-up of the group will play for third place in Dushanbe on t
he same date.
After the tournament, Malaysia will continue the remaining Group F matches of the 2027 Asian Cup Qualifiers against Laos in Vientiane on October 9 and in Malaysia on October 14 before meeting Nepal in Kathmandu on November 18 and facing Vietnam away in March next year. Harimau Malaya head coach, Peter Cklamovski described the 2025 Nations Cup draw as an important step in the Malaysian national squad’s journey towards building a more competitive team.
“The Nations Cup is an exciting tournament and it’s an important step in our journey as a national team. We have been waiting for the draw for some time and we’ve obviously had plan A or plan B,” he said in an audio shared by FAM tonight. He also described the match against Iran as a great opportunity to assess the true level of the national team and hopes that all Malaysians will give their full support to the national squad in this tournament. “They’re going to a World Cup. It’s a massive challenge for us, a massive opportunity for us. We’ll use
it as a way to benchmark ourselves against the best. A test of our football against them, we will take our football to them as hard as we can,” he said.