IT’S safe to say the year of 2007 has not had the smooth opening the Myanmar Football Federation (MFF), fans or players would have liked.

Both the men’s and women’s national teams have played qualifying matches for the 2008 Beijing Olympics but emerged without a win to show for their efforts.

The campaigns’ losses highlight a number of looming headaches for our football administrators and serve as notice that we need to dramatically improve the skill levels of our players if we are to become serious regional competitors.

Our men’s national team were defeated by the lower-ranked India in the Olympics preliminary qualifying rounds despite the Indiams fielding a younger side and gaining none of the support the subcontinent showers on its cricketers.

The top three Asian sides will take to the world stage in Olympics next year and it was always a fairly safe assumption that Myanmar would not be one of those teams while we lack general footballing skills.

We must now do some serious soul-searching if we are to regain our former status – because we weren’t always the 154th ranked side in the world.

Perhaps our highest point was a berth at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where we joined Malaysia and Iran among the three Asian competitors.

Although the team failed to graduate past the group stage, it did put on a series of strong performances and won an award for fair play. We also defeated Sudan 2-0 while our two losses – both 1-0 – came at the hands of the powerful USSR and Mexico teams.

Myanmar also won five consecutive South East Asian Games gold medals and two Asian Games gold medals in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Oh, how we long for those days!

Looking abroad provides part of the answer as to why we have fallen so far. For one, we lack a professional football league that could serve as a breeding ground for talented players.

Neighbouring Bangladesh started a professional league last Friday, and they only have 11 teams. Myanmar meanwhile already has 14 sides in our top league.

It’s not too late for us, but had we acted earlier to launch a pro football league there may now be stronger support from fans and a sincere confidence that we, Myanmar, are a side to be reckoned with.

“Take that, India!” we would have said as a packed Thuwunna stadium roared with fans and streets became eerily empty. Instead, our pre-qualifier in Yangon last month was played to a largely empty stadium, with a pocket of enthused, die-hard followers.

U Khin Maung Kyaing, the manager of Myanmar League leaders Customs, told The Myanmar Times what he thought the problem was: “We lost to India because of weak football skills.

“The main reason for this is that our players don’t have enough interest in sharpening their skills. They don’t want to take their full responsibility and also cannot learn their field positions because we have to arrange them before each match. No interest in skill development means losing games.”

It’s a controversial view, and one that leads us to look at the sources of strong motivation. Again we return to the pro league notion. International matches are only so often, but glory at home is an ongoing affair – provided rewards are there to be reaped.

The MFF has also been accused at times of not paying enough attention to our women’s side. The feisty women’s squad should have won their recent Group C Olympic qualifying round in Chinese Taipei, but instead they lost, going down to Austrailia, Uzbekistan and the hosts.

All the while we continue to field older – some may say fading – stars like Aye Nandar Hlaing, Khin Marlar Tun and Thuzar Htway, who are all over 30.

We should reserve places for our young players so we can give them enough experience to be successful in the future. And by blooding the younger players now they will be ready to be leaders in years to come.

But at least some people are having a laugh. I heard one comedian make a joke the other day about the Myanmar side.

“We often say that we can tell what kind of child a pregnant woman will bear by her behaviour before the child is born,” the joker said. “During dinner if she reaches to pick up a fork but actually picks up a spoon, then we say she’s sure to give birth to a national football player.” Indeed.

At the moment it seems all we get is the “business as usual” line from the MFF.

Well, like the Asian sharemarkets, our stock has slipped and we need to start looking for solutions.