KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — National team head coach, Tan Cheng Hoe is optimistic that the ‘Harimau Malaya’ squad would get back into winning ways soon, after being tied 2-2 with Mongolia in an international friendly fixture at Bukit Jalil National Stadium here, last night.
The 49-year-old coach said, the players did a very good job against the world the number 189 squad, but was unlucky to fail to end the winless streak of the national team, where Harimau Malaya squad have not won in 11 matches now.
“The goal we conceded came from individual mistakes and lack of concentration. I believe we can still improve the situation as the players were seen more confident today. Though Muhammad Akhyar Abdul Rasid was the youngest player in the squad, he showed a great performance,” he said after the match.
Ranked 178, host Malaysia opened scoring in the 31st minute when Mongolian skipper, Turbaat Daginaa mistakenly headed the ball into his own net, before Enkhbileg Purevdorj equalised 11 minutes later for the Mongolian side, comprising of semi-pro players.
Muhammad Akhyar again put the Harimau Malaya squad in the front through a fantastic move in the 65th minute, but Mongolia again found the equaliser through Gankhuyag Ser-Od-Yanjiv six minutes later.
Harimau Malaya last recorded a win against Cambodia with a 3-2 win during the 2016 AFF Cup campaign in November that year.
The Harimau Malaya squad would depart for Beirut on Sunday to face Lebanon in the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers on March 27th.
Meanwhile, Mongolian coach Michael Weiss admitted that his vast experience on South East Asian football during his three years tenure as the Philippines head coach and home work on Malaysia’s matches, helped him to stop the home team, despite fielded more than 80 per cent of young players below 23-years-old tonight.
“We had a hard time to cope with the hot weather in the first 10 minutes because we did not play for a long time as we had a long winter in Mongolia this time. Since last year, we had training camps in Japan and Korea, while before coming to Malaysia we had two weeks training at Kunming, China.
“We have lost about six to seven players, so had to play with young players…Luckily I have very good young players in the team. I think in Malaysia also many youth players are coming up, you need to give them more playing time…My humble opinion,” the German said.
Weiss said the two main objective for him is to win the preliminary stage of East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) championship when hosting Northern Mariana Islands, Macau and Guam to advance to the next round in September this year, as well as qualify to the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers in June 2019. — Bernama
