Just A Few Things: Afghanistan Vs. Malaysia
Credit- Football Association of Malaysia.
Marilah Bangkit!
This was the perfect response after Malaysia went down with a whimper against Singapore, losing by a single goal. On paper, Afghanistan is a much tougher team to face compared to our Causeway neighbors. Despite that, Malaysia showed a much better fight, coming away with a slim 2-1 victory to earn a 3rd place finish in the Airmarine Cup.
It took awhile for them to get going thanks to the heavy rain sweeping across the Bukit Jalil area. But once they did, they were far better here than that shambolic night. Their passes were more incisive and the players’ movements look sharper. They took the game to Afghanistan and dominated almost the entire second half while never looked troubled at all.
They bounced back well from that disappointment and sealed the win after Albassin Alikhil slid Matt Davies’ low cross into his own net. The team performed brilliantly, but the day belonged to one man.
Messi Malaysia
What a story for the player nicknamed as ‘Messi (Insert state name here)’. Faiz Nasir may well be the missing piece Tan Cheng Hoe was looking for when looking to penetrate down the centre. It took him years to finally make his international debut and it was surely an incredible debut to remember for him and the fans.
He is already used to facing bigger opposition by now, so his slick movements caused uncertainty to that Afghanistan defence who probably didn’t know who they were dealing with and whenever Faiz wreaked havoc whenever he goes forward. Faiz also provided the necessary support for whichever winger who has the ball. All in all, he is the tenacious player we all remember as he provided that effective link needed between the midfield and forward.
And if that is not enough, he even had the audacity to show Afghanistan’s Faysal Shayesteh, the ex-Pahang midfielder who scored the opener, that what Faysal did, he can do it too. Faiz’ was able to float his shot over the Afghanistan keeper Ovays Azizi. It was similar to how Faysal scored his own one. Faiz displayed a man-of-the-match performance with his energetic dribbling and runs around Afghanistan’s final third. You might as well call him ‘Messi Malaysia’ from here on out.
There’s Still An Underlying Problem
Perhaps the heavy rain is the perfect description of how Norshahrul Idlan Talaha’s game went. It was his turn to being placed in a central forward role with Zaquan Adha dropped to the bench. While he showed his usual energy, it was clear he is not suited over in that position, having not troubled Azizi enough.
This and Zaquan’s performance against Singapore highlighted that lack of focal point for Malaysia’s attacks. They don’t have someone to cause chaos in the opposition box or be a reliable target man, although Mohamadou Sumareh was given that task late on and the results were indifferent. While the focus was on results, this issue cannot be overlooked and it’s largely thanks to the clubs reliance on foreign strikers. So far the only local proper centre-forwards are still young or in the lower leagues and unless we take the naturalization path or consider the Premier League’s strikers, we’re not going to see a pure CF for quite a while in the senior set-up.