KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 — Harimau Malaya head coach Kim Pan Gon stressed that a slim 1-0 victory in the first leg of the 2022 AFF Cup Semifinal against Thailand at the National Stadium, Bukit Jalil, here, yesterday was clearly not enough to cement a place in the final.
While a torrid time awaits the national squad in the return leg at the Thammasat Stadium, this Tuesday (January 10), Pan Gon believes his players can keep their cool and go out fighting in a bid to avoid a semi final exit away from home.
“A 1-0 win was clearly not enough, what more playing at home, but I am still happy with the result.
“It was a very tough game because Thailand is a very strong team. We tried to pressure them but it was not easy,” he said at a post match press conference, here yesterday.
More importantly, he was relieved to see that his team did not concede a goal against the ‘War Elephants’ in the match after nippy winger Mohamad Faisal Abdul Halim opened the score in the 11th minute.
“We had chances to score, the result could be 3-0 to us while the opponent also had few opportunities to get a goal but the players are all human, they made mistakes. Hopefully my players can recover quickly,” he said.
When asked to comment on Dominic Tan’s disallowed header in the 55th minute, the South Korean only said: “I did not see it (the incident) clearly, I cannot say anything,”.
Meanwhile, Thailand head coach, Alexandre Polking was gutted to see his squad lose the game to Malaysia despite Thailand clearly dominating the game in Bukit Jalil.
“As a coach, I don’t like to lose like that but this is football as losing is part of the game. I never thought that Thailand can dominate the game because Malaysia were totally different in the group stage,” he said.
In the meantime, he also believed that they could turn the tables and get a result against Malaysia next.
“It was a great result for Malaysia and fantastic crowd here but we also have amazing fans and I am pretty sure they will push us to try and put the ball at the back of the net,” he said.
— Bernama
