Malaysia's Harimau Muda B side, who are preparing for the Olympic qualifiers in March, were dealt a 5-0 mauling by Iranian club side Zobahan on home turf at the Selayang Stadium, near Kuala Lumpur, on Friday.
Razip Ismail's men are in final preparations for their Olympic qualifying campaign and have selected a number of teams to play friendly matches starting with the 2010 AFC Champions League runners-up.
Zobahan went into the half-time break with a three-goal advantage courtesy of Ghasem Hadafifar (12th minute), Mehdi Mehdipar (33th) and Masaud Hasan Zadeh (40th) before another two goals by Marteza Tabrizi in the 64th and 75th minute wrapped up a convincing five-goal rout for the visitors.
Malaysia coach Razip Ismail was left seething as he saw his defence crumble in the face of strong opposition and will be seeking answers when the team heads back into training the next few days.
As reported by The Star, the former Malaysian international said: "I don't know what's wrong with the players. They did well in our previous friendlies in December but performed badly against Zobahan.
"Although alarmed by the heavy defeat, I believe it is just a blip. Credit to the experienced Zobahan for taking their chances well.
"We've learned a lot from this defeat, but I believe we have time to rectify the mistakes before the AFC Under-22 qualifiers in March."
With only two months left to prepare for their AFC U-22 tournament which is the qualifying competition for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Malaysia are in Group I along with Asian giant Japan, Vietnam and Macau.
Only the winners of the ten qualifying groups and the best five runners-up will move on to the finals in Qatar next January where they proceed to fight for the three slots to qualify for the Olympics proper.
Next up for Harimau Muda B will be the six-nation Bangabandhu Gold Cup tournament in Bangladesh at the end of this month and Razip is confident that his men will put up a better showing as he continues to assess his team's strengths.
"I believe that the team will be better with the inclusion of a few players from the M-League clubs, like Nazmi Faiz Mansor (Selangor) and Muhammad Farhan Roslan (Kedah)," said Razip.
"We are trying to get a friendly against Uzbekistan's Under-19 side on Jan 21 in Kuala Lumpur before the Bangabandhu Gold Cup. In Bangladesh, we will be playing against teams from our age group, so we will know our actual strength there."