T Gopinath Naidu

Career

Gopinath Naidu started his football career with Kuala Lumpur's youth team in 1986. At that time he was only 12 and he represented the state and country in various age group tournaments. He won few top-scorer and best player award at the Malaysia national tournaments and international. His impressive performance with KL youth and Malaysian national youth team earned him an attachment with Aston Villa at that time was managed by former KL coach Dr.Josef Venglos and also with Bayer Leverkusen.

He was trained under several notable coaches; Eckhard Krautzun, Claude Le Roy, Ken Shellito, Colin Harvey, Dick Bate and some local coaches as, M. Karathu, Khaidir Buyong, B. Sathianathan, Lim Kim Choon and many more.

In 1992, he was offered professional playing contract with Kuala Lumpur by President Tan Sri Dato' Elyas Omar who was the Kuala Lumpur mayor. During this period he played against several top players and teams such as Aston Villa, Middlesbrough, AEK Athens, FC Kaiserslautern.

While he was reaching at his peak he sustain a serious knee injury which he underwent surgery in Germany. He came back and played for Kuala Lumpur and won the 1993–1994 FA Cup twice, which gained him the title as a top scorer. This has earned him to be called up for the pre-qualifying for the 1996 Summer Olympics Atlanta team under Claude Le Roy in 1994.

He continued playing for the Malaysian Professional League which is also known as M-League for Kuala Lumpur and later for Perak in 1996 and had a few offers to play in Singapore and Hong Kong league as well.

Due to his serious knee injuries throughout his football career, Gopinath Naidu had to make a tough decision after consulting a few orthopaedic surgeons to retire as a professional footballer.

He also appeared on a Live Talk Show in 2010 alongside Selangor FA Manager/Coach K. Devan.