Perak FC earned a solid 5th place upon their return to Malaysia’s top flight. But manager Trebor Mahtal was at a loss for how they could compete with Johor, who won a treble alongside 17 consecutive titles.
Perak again lost their star player as attacker Ramón Arce decided he wanted to leave, started missing training and moved back to Argentina for £20k. To move closer to Malaysia’s biggest clubs, Mahtal had to take some gambles in the transfer market and they mostly paid off. That included 21-year-old Argentinian Alejandro Cabrera, who’s arguably the best goalkeeper in Malaysia, for a club record £36k, along with 19-year-old Uruguayan midfielder Joaquín Nunez and two Peruvians in centre back Aníbal Barco and winger Félix Rabines. He also boosted the domestic player contingent with Johor holding midfielder Jalahuddin Abu Bakar, centre back Hamzah Zulkifli and striker Zulkarnain Sulaiman.
Mahtal opted to move to a more conservative 4-3-3 approach, largely forced by their lack of attacking depth. A lot of pressure was now on young striker Zulkifli Hasim (Zulki) to deliver goals for his team, while Mahtal made an error in having four foreign players for three available starting slots, so he’d have to rotate the non-Malaysian players.
Second Season In Super League
The bookies rated Mahtal’s summer work, predicting Perak to finish 4th with title odds of 33/1. Johor, who’ve won 17 successive titles and went unbeaten in a domestic treble last season, remain 3/10 favourites followed by Selangor and Sabah. However, they finally lost in their second game of the season at Selangor, potentially offering the rest of the league a scrap of hope.
Perak started the season with a solid 4-2 win over Kelantan before losing 2-1 at Selangor and the Johor hoodoo continued with a slightly unlucky 1-0 home loss. Zulki bagged a hat trick to down PDRM 3-0 and Rabines scored braces in 5-2 and 4-2 wins over MPPD and Melaka, which sent his side 3rd in the table. Perak came close to a first point at Johor but conceded a 94th-minute winner, which means they remain winless against the dominant team in Malaysia in 19 meetings during this save – only drawing twice.
Perak’s form fell of a cliff at the end of the season, but they still managed to hold on for another solid 5th place, well behind Sabah in 4th and still 16 points back from 18-time consecutive champions Johor who were pushed a little closer this time.
Targeting Cup Glory
The near-impossible chances of winning the league put more focus on the cups. Perak cruised through the first two rounds of Piala FA with 3-1 wins over PDRM and MAHSA City, then winger Abdul Rahman Mohamad’s double saw off Perlis United 2-0 in the quarter finals. A rival clash at Selangor, who they’d beaten in the league two weeks previously, followed in the semis, but Perak got dismantled 4-1. A few months later, Perak cruised past Melaka in the Piala Malaysia first round then a rested first team saw off Sabah 4-2 on aggregate. That teed up another semi with Selangor and Aziz and Zulki nicked a 2-0 home win and a 3-2 away defeat snuck them into another final. And guess who awaited them? Yep. Johor, looking to complete a double-triple. Perak lost Nunez to suspension, which solved Mahtal’s foreign player conundrum, so he lined up:
Cabrera; Hassan, Yussof, Barco, Abdul Rahim; Bakar; Rabines, Hussain, Aziz; Sulaiman, Zulki
Subs: Mohamad, Abdullah, Hussin, Azhar, Azmi, Shamsuddin, Hamzah, Hashim
The sides played out a pretty poor first half with Johor having the better of things. But Perak saw them off and struck with their first real chance as Zulki headed home Abdul Rahim’s floated cross. Johor levelled with a really good goal nine minutes from time, but Perak should have nicked it in the last minute as Sulaiman headed a good chance wide. That sent it to extra time and, inevitably, Johor scored a 30-yard screamer and Perak couldn’t come back. So Johor completed consecutive domestic trebles and have only lost four matches in the last three seasons…
Zulki very much stepped up this season, leading Perak’s goalscoring chart with 25 in 36 games. Nunez scored 11 with 6 assists, Rabines scored 7 with 8 assists, Mohamad scored 7 with 5 assists, Abdul Rahim got 11 assists and midfielder Danial Aziz got 8 assists.
Third Season In Premier League
Mahtal was undeniably disappointed by the latest cup defeat to Johor, but had very little option but to go again. He’d applied for a few other “P opportunities” when vacancies came up at Penarol and Pogon but didn’t even get an interview, before being approached by Turkish strugglers Pendikspor – which he didn’t apply for and felt like a longer shot at success than in Perak considering they were 12 points adrift with 8 games to play. Furthermore, he had 22 players with 4.5-star potential or better, so he still believed Perak could challenge Malaysia’s big teams and the board agreed to fund his Continental Pro Licence.
The foreign player issue was addressed by flogging Cabrera, who proved goalkeeper ratings are irrelevant as he conceded 27 in 16 with only 27 saves, for a new club record of £60k to Sabah – doubling the previous record set in 2024. Mahtal didn’t see a huge need to make signings and struggled to find worthwhile Malaysians, but did bring in 6ft 4in goalkeeper Muh Rahadiazli Rahalim and backup left back Shaiful Malek. He also promoted exciting homegrown midfielders Azman Hussain and Imran Jamil.
Mahtal again decided to switch up the tactics. He initially learned toward a narrow 4-1-3-2 he’d started playing at the end of last season before switching to a fairly balanced 3-5-2 approach, given he had lots of promising centre backs.
The bookies again expect Perak to finish 4th with odds of 50/1 with Johor way out in front at 3/10. In fairness, though, it’s hardly surprising nobody can compete with Johor. The club spends £3.8m per annum on wages, more than double that of Selangor’s £1.84m, triple Sabah’s £1.22m and over 11 times more than Perak’s £358k. It also has seven players earning more than Mahtal’s entire weekly wage budget of £6,400, including Honduran striker Luis Díaz taking home £11,500 per week.
Perak started the season well with Zulki’s brace leading a 3-1 win over Kuala Lumpur and he scored again as his strike partner Sulaiman bagged twice in an impressive 5-1 win at Sembilan. That was the catalyst for a flying start to the season, led by the in-form Sulaiman and Zulki sharing 15 goals as Perak won their first eight matches. The winning start ended as Nunez’s penalty rescued a 1-1 at home to Selangor, before back-to-back defeats against Johor moved the perennial champions 2 points clear.
A Big Cup Opportunity
Johor’s domestic domination came to a surprise end as they lost on penalties to Kuala Lumpur in the Piala FA Malaysia second round. Perak eased into the semis with wins over Perlis, Sembilan and Melaka before Aziz, Sulaiman and Hussain inspired a superb 3-0 win over Selangor. That provided Mahtal’s best chance at silverware so far at Perak as they took on Malaysian University in the Final. Sulaiman passed a fitness test following a gashed leg, so Mahtal lined up:
Rahalim; Yussof, Hussin, Barco; Rabines, Abdul Rahim; Nunez; Aziz, Hussain; Sulaiman, Zulki
Subs: Ramli, Abdullah, Shamsuddin, Jamil, Azmi, Abu Bakar, Mohamad, Azhar, Somasundram
Perak got an absolute flyer as, straight from the kickoff, Nunez picked out Aziz to slide Sulaiman in to slot past the keeper after 15 seconds. Perak bossed the game and Hussain and Sulaiman forced great saves out of the keeper before Aziz rattled the bar from 30 yards on 40 minutes. But they went in at the break 1-0 ahead after 8 shots to 0. They maintained that dominance after halftime and Mohd Faisal Yussof doubled the lead by heading home a freekick on 56 minutes before Sulaiman wrapped up the victory by heading home a corner with 8 minutes remaining.
Perak won their 3rd Shopee Piala FA Malaysia, and first since 2004, and Mahtal ticked P off the Alphabet Challenge!
Mahtal Bids Farewell To Perak
With that success in the bag, Mahtal decided to stay at Perak to try and end Johor’s league domination, while keeping an eye out for his next opportunity (see Part 11 next time). Perak did their best to keep the pressure on a relentless Johor, but a 2-1 defeat at Selangor probably killed off all chances of glory. Indeed, Johor wrapped up a 19th consecutive title in late October and went unbeaten for the second time in three seasons, so Mahtal tendered his resignation at the end of his contract. He went on to lead the club to a 2nd-place finish and win the Johor-free Challenge Cup, which they’d never previously qualified for and he wasn’t fully sure how they had.
Perak finished 2nd with 65 points, which was a new record high without winning the title, after 21 wins, 2 draws and 3 defeats, scoring 66 and conceding 26. Sulaiman was the league’s top scorer with 24 goals and Rabines got the second-most assists with 13.
Perak had seen huge steps up in quality this season, led by Sulaiman breaking Chewy’s club record with 35 goals in 36 games followed by Hashim with 23 goals and 10 assists in 36 games. Nunez scored 10 with 3 assists, Barco (who left the club at the end of his contract before the final game of the season) scored 6 with 3 assists and Rabines led the assists with 17 followed by Aziz’s 13.
Mahtal had loved his time at Perak, leading them to the Championship title before edging closer to the dominant Johor and eventually winning the FA Cup after losing his previos three finals. He departs Perak after nearly four years at the club, in which he led them in 148 games, winning 100, drawing 15 and losing 33 with a 67% win ratio, scoring 403 goals and conceded 217.
Approaching nine years into this save, Mahtal has ticked off three letters – S, L and P. Meaning he still had 23 more to go! Where would Mahtal end up next as he went in search of the fourth leg of his Alphabet Challenge? Join us on Monday to find out!
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