He has been labelled a \u201cgenius\u201d by his coach at Johor Darul Ta\u2019zim, Esteban Solari, with his trickery on the right proving to be a devastating weapon for both club and country as he has shone domestically and on the international stage.
\n\u201cI believe he has all the tools to achieve greatness,\u201d Solari said recently. \u201cHe has the ability to grow as much as he wants. He has great character, works hard, always wants to improve and he has the desire to become a greater player and is still improving.\u201d<\/p>\n
High praise indeed for a young man who has made little more than 20 appearances for Malaysia since being granted his debut against Bahrain in May 2021 during qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 by former coach Tan Cheng Hoe soon after his 19th birthday.
\nArif, though, has steadily justified his rapid rise and the hype that has built around him with performances that have been instrumental in JDT\u2019s continued success at domestic level and Malaysia\u2019s improving fortunes.<\/p>\n
He scored eight times and garnered 13 assists as JDT retained \u2013 yet again \u2013 the Malaysia Super League title and was also instrumental in the club\u2019s successful defence of the Malaysia Cup, scoring four times in four games.
\nArif has transferred those numbers on the international stage, too.<\/p>\n
In November he assisted three of the four goals Malaysia scored in their 4-3 victory over Kyrgyz Republic as Kim Pan-gon\u2019s side notched up back-to-back wins in Preliminary Joint Qualification \u2013 Round 2 for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027 matches.
\nWhile he has been known to play occasionally on the left and in a slightly deeper role on the right side of midfield, it is as a right winger where Arif flourishes and he will be looking to do damage to opponents at the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023\u2122.<\/p>\n
\u201cI play in an attacking position,\u201d he said recently. \u201cI can’t play in other positions because dribbling is part of me and without it, I won’t have anything to show for on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He has been labelled a \u201cgenius\u201d by his coach at Johor Darul Ta\u2019zim, Esteban Solari, with his trickery on the right proving to be a devastating weapon for both club and country as he has shone domestically and on the international stage. \u201cI believe he has all the tools to achieve greatness,\u201d Solari said recently. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":919168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-919167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afc-news","tag-afc","tag-afc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=919167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/919168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=919167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=919167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=919167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}