Both sides met in the fourth qualifying match at the Shah Alam Stadium on Sept 8 last year but the Saudis were given a 3-0 win by FIFA following crowd trouble by some unruly Malaysian fans.
“We know that Saudi are a strong team but we did very well against them in Shah Alam and I believe we can repeat that performance,” he told the pre-match press conference in Jeddah today, the transcripts of which were made available to the media here by the FA of Malaysia’s Media Department.
Kim Swee said that he also believed that the players in the standy list ― Mohd Nazrin Nawi and Adam Nor Azlin who were called up from the list to replace two injured players ― S. Chanturu and Muhammad Fazly Mazlan, would give their best performance against the hosts.
In the meantime, the Melaka-born coach warned the backline players to strenghten the defence department since the hosts’ strikers had a better scoring record ― 25 goals in six qualifying matches.
Sharing his views was captain Safiq Rahim who urged his teammates not to underestimate the hosts who would certainly be relying on the home fans and also the home ground advantage to secure a victory against the national side.
“As our coach had said, we will play with our own capabilities and strengths and most importantly, we hope to give our best performance despite this is the last match in the qualifier.
“I’m confident we can repeat the same performance in our last meeting against the Saudi team,” said the Johor Darul Ta’zim skipper.
Malaysia must beat Saudi Arabia to avoid playing in the play-off matches to the third round of the 2019 Asian Cup. ― Bernama
