Just A Few Things: Malaysia Vs. Singapore

Credit: Football Association of Malaysia

More Than Cruel Reality

Going into the first international break of the year, Malaysia were favorites on paper when they take on Singapore. After tonight however, head coach Tan Cheng Hoe had made a few bad decisions that lead to this extremely disappointing slim defeat to our southern neighbors across the Causeway.

Ex-PKNS winger, Faris Ramli scored the only goal for the visitors on 82 minutes that condemned Malaysia to a 3rd place playoff against Afghanistan in the inaugural Airmarine Cup and embarrassed the team in their own home as a result. It was bad enough Ultras Malaya called off the curva due to the ticket price in protest, but this is too much for the few thousands of fans who actually paid a lot to watch the team in action.

Cheng Hoe and this team looked like they were re-establishing the trust in the national team following a superb run in the recent AFF Suzuki Cup finals, but this result has set them back by a lot of kilometers. It’s going to take a special performance against Afghanistan to at least salvage something from their wounded pride. But one thing looks clear: Whatever chance Malaysia got to go higher in the FIFA rankings has gone up in smoke and they are looking set to play an extra round in the 2022 World Cup/ 2023 Asia Cup qualifying.

The First Change

The first call to change things around was to weirdly sub out Norshahrul Idlan Talaha (AKA Mat Yo) who was the brighter of the four attackers in the first half during the break. Although the reasoning was sound for two reasons (The second one in which we will go into much later). Mat Yo made that Singapore defence nervous with his mazy dribbles that nearly made a breakthrough and more of that in the second half would’ve got Malaysia the edge. However, it was revealed by resident freelance broadcaster, Hanif Miswan that Mat Yo wasn’t fully fit heading into this match. This made his performance in the first 45 even more impressive.

If he had been fully fit, Mohamadou Sumareh or Zaquan Adha would’ve been sacrificed instead. So it was a shame Mat Yo wasn’t 100% by the time this match came around.

Bad Call

But the call that wind-up the most costly of all was to retain Irfan Zakaria & Syazwan Andik in the back-line. Despite the forms of the likes of Johor Darul Takzim’s La’vere Corbin-Ong & Adam Nor Azlin and Pahang’s Faisal Rosli & Muslim Ahmad who weren’t called up, head coach Tan Cheng Hoe have opted to keep faith in the two players who are not primarily defenders. Syazwan Andik’s positioning still looks awkward that would allow Singapore’s right-back, Nazarul Nazari to drift into space and help out his fellow teammate deployed on the right-wing. On the bright side though, at least he recovered to close down that space. But had Singapore’s link-up play down on that side were much quicker and crosses were more threatening, it would’ve spelled trouble for Syazwan, who is originally plays at the left-wing.

But Irfan continued to draw the ire of fans whenever he is deployed as the centre-back. His positioning looks off and looked barely composed when things looked scary. To be fair, Shahrul Saad sadly looked off tonight too and almost gifted a goal early in the first half. But Irfan’s shakiness didn’t help either and the Perak defender had to clean up his mess once in a while. How a through pass getting past them that led to Singapore’s winner is anyone’s guess. Irfan may be good in a back three, but he looked nowhere near good when two central defenders are deployed.

The warning signs were there even before this match, but Cheng Hoe failed to heed them. You can consider that Irfan started due to Nicholas Swirad’s unfortunate injury, but was the PKNS defender slated to start alongside Shahrul? That is the question only Cheng Hoe can answer.

Mana Ketajaman Serangan?

Of all the times for our attack to go off the rails, it had to be in this match. Everything they tried to get a goal, the end product becomes too sloppy for anyone’s liking. Sumareh had such a poor game and his decision-making was way off too. Zaquan didn’t look influential that further highlighted a center-forward problem and while Syazwan Zainon didn’t do enough as he would’ve liked, he looked better of the three maligned forwards. So it was another strange call when he was hauled off for Hazwan Bakri, who sadly didn’t improve anything.

But Malaysia had two great chances to score and how they haven’t converted from two scary-looking low crosses within a space of seconds is anyone’s guess, much to their disbelief. The attackers night was summed up when Sumareh failed to realize no one was in the box until after he played a cutback when he should’ve shoot.

Out Of Nowhere

Give credit to Singapore, they held us under control in the first half and they used their physicality to try disrupting Malaysia in their passing game. Every time Malaysia has the ball, there is always bound to be a Singapore player coming right behind them, giving the players only a short time to react to get rid of the ball to his nearest teammate.

They commanded a presence that they are not to be taken for a whirlwind. For the entire first half, they executed the press brilliantly and they could’ve scored at least two times had it not been for Khairul Fahmi, who was only one of two Malaysian players that left the field with some credit. It wasn’t very high pressing, but the intensity is enough to give trouble to Malaysia when they had possession.

Solid  Halim

However, there was one right call that Cheng Hoe made. That was to send on Selangor’s Abdul Halim Saari for Mat Yo. This is to get Nor Azam Azih slotted in the attacking midfield position to give that much needed link between the midfield and the attack that was non-existent in the first half. Halim was the second player to impress as he bought some stability back in the midfield. His main role here is the same when he plays for Selangor: He is tasked to be the deep-lying playmaker.

Singapore eased off the pressure whenever Malaysia has the ball in their own half, therefore, it allowed Halim to get the balls forward from a deep area. Not only that, it allowed Akram Mahinan a few times to get forward and his runs have looked threatening while Halim sits back try to get any loose balls or looking to win the ball back. His demeanor looked like he has been called up a few times and yet, this is his first appearance for the Harimau Malaya. His cameo may consider him a starting berth. If not against Afghanistan, maybe in later international breaks as long as he maintains a good form with the Red Giants.