KUALA LUMPUR: Terengganu FC players will have to grit their teeth and survive a difficult start in the first round of the 2022 FA Cup, as they are drawn to meet 2021 Premier League champions Negeri Sembilan FC.
Head coach Nafuzi Zain(pix), who will lead his team in the FA Cup for the first time since he started coaching the East Coast team in 2019, however, is optimistic that his men will be able to overcome the ‘Hobin Jang Hobin' squad in their match next month.
“We will meet a strong team in the first round compared to other Super League teams. So, the important thing is that the team has to first go past this first round before we can think beyond this rivalry.
“It’s been two seasons since the FA Cup was cancelled, so this is my first job for the team. And if we want to talk about pressure, it’s normal in a draw that all kinds of things can happen, and we need to focus for this round first,“ he said in a statement issued by the Malaysian Football League (MFL) today.
The clash between Terengganu and Negeri Sembilan will be the only match involving two Super League teams for the first round and is expected to be an interesting clash in the scramble to reach round two.
For the record, the FA Cup which involved all 12 Super League teams, seven Premier League teams and 15 M3 League teams, was introduced in 1990 and had to be cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, Sabah FC head coach Datuk Ong Kim Swee definitely has no lack of ‘respect’ for their FA Cup opponent Respect FC, despite the club playing in the M3 League.
On the contrary, he told his team to buck up because in several friendly matches ahead of the 2022 Malaysia League, they showed an unsatisfactory run-up.
“We can’t take it easy in any match because even in the friendlies recently, we didn’t show up too well. So, facing a club from the M3 League will be difficult and we have to pull our socks up to get through the first round,” he said.
In this regard, the former head coach of Harimau Malaya hopes to be able to take Sabah as far as possible in the FA Cup campaign, besides maintaining an excellent run in the Super League.
The 2022 FA Cup competition will kick off with qualifying round actions involving two matches -- between BRM FC vs Tun Razak City FC (winner vs JDT in first round), and Bukit Tambun FC vs Immigration FC (winner vs Penang FC in first round) which is scheduled to take place on March 6, followed by the first round action from March 11 to 13.-Bernama
