Just A Few Things: Laos U-23 Vs. Malaysia U-23

Credit- Football Association of Malaysia

A Mountain Bigger Than Mt. Kinabalu

It looked like head coach Ong Kim Swee has the China game in mind as he made changes to half his team that defeated Philippines 3-0 on the opening match of the AFC U-23 Cup qualifying. But those changes almost backfired, especially in one key area, in which we will go into next.

But everything was so sloppy by our boys and it didn’t help Laos look like that they did well to cause grief to us. In a qualifying format where there is no room for error, we almost made a huge space for one. It was looking like we were about to blow it in the most embarrassing way imaginable by being held to a draw. But we got out of the scrap barely had it not been for Safawi Rasid, who played as a 2nd half substitution. The match desperately needed magic and Safawi provided it when his right-wing free-kick went all the way into the far post eight minutes from stoppage time. While there is relief, the celebration perhaps is somewhat muted given what we needed to do to maximize our chances to qualify.

We may be tied on points with China, but now our task to qualify has got extremely difficult. With goal difference playing a key factor in determining the best five runners-up, we sit outside those places at +1 GD at this time of writing while a few other teams are slamming goals in like they’re at a carnival.

It’s a huge mountain to climb, but as Manchester United caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said about the Paris St. Germain Champions League tie, “Mountains are there to be climbed”. Time for our players to put on their hiking boots because Mount China is next on their sights. A win will seal our path, a draw would see us depend on how the other results fare.

First Impressions Count

The changes heavily affected the midfield. Danial Amier sadly picked up another injury so that one can’t be helped, while resting Nik Akif for the final day match. And so, we see a whole new midfield set-up. So it was time for them to make a good first impression.

It was an audition for Danial Haqim & K. Thivandran in a highly competitive match. Unfortunately, they looked out of tune and fumbled their role badly. Thivandran however, is the most guilty. He looked very sloppy on & off-the-ball and drew annoyance from the crowd whenever he lost possession, which alarmingly happened a little too often.

As a result, Danial Haqim would have to recover quickly to go back and defend to sweep Thivandran’s mistakes. That in turn would disrupt the whole rhythm and tempo. It was pure frustration watching the team, but the midfield is culpable for this god-awful performance. So sadly, this midfield pairing has failed to impress the fans watching them in action for the first time.

Counting Their Presses

V. Sundramoorthy has this habit of getting his teams causing grief to Malaysia whenever they would meet. We all should’ve seen how this game will pan out coming since he is also in charge of the Laos U-23 team. Yet again, he almost masterminded another result against us.

He got Laos to counter-press Malaysia whenever they lose possession and with the midfield looking very off, it was working very well for them. Once they do get possession back, they even looked somewhat threatening in attack with Vannsone Douangmaity the brightest of all the Laos’ attackers with his shot hitting the top of the bar in the first half.

Thankfully for Malaysia, the defenders did their job well to see out any imposing threat but Laos could’ve got away with a point thanks to Sundramoorthy’s plans. But like he saw his senior team lose against us in the recent AFF Suzuki Cup, the Singaporean was denied once again by some late-game brilliance.

No Chaos

Another change Kim Swee made was to replace Hadi Fayyadh for makeshift forward Nik Azli Nik Alias. The change may have been made at an inopportune time because Hadi would’ve caused the chaos needed to unnerve the Laos defence a lot more.

The big target man would’ve benefitted from the long balls occasionally (Key word: occasionally) delivered by the defence and would’ve got Faisal Abdul Halim & Akhyar Rashid to create even more chaos when they collect the second balls. Nik Azli sadly was ineffective where physicality would’ve played a factor to break through that five-man defence set-up. But with Hadi rested, he should be all set to go against China.