PETALING JAYA: The Harimau Malaya are set to face familiar foes - Turkmenistan on March 23 and Hong Kong on March 28 at the Sultan Ibrahim Stadium in Iskandar Puteri, Johor.
National team head coach Kim Pan Gon, said both the world number 135 Turkmenistan and Hong Kong, ranked 146, are looking forward to take revenge on his charges after losing in previous matches.
Malaysia, ranked 145, defeated Hong Kong 2-0 in a friendly and Turkmenistan 3-1 in the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers, both at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in June.
“Turkmenistan are a good team, I heard they’re very upset to lose against us. They want to prove themselves by challenging us again, so welcome. Same goes to Hong Kong, who couldn’t bring their best players from China (then) because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“So this time they will bring their best team. This will be good for us, because both teams, in terms of (the) mental (front), want to challenge us,” he told press conference at Wisma FAM here, today.
Pan Gon said the coaching team wanted Malaysia to play against a strong side and an average team in order to give the best competitive exposure to the team, besides maintaining the rankings as Top 25 in Asia to avoid the first round of the 2026 World Cup/2027 Asian Cup Qualifiers, expected to be played in October.
The Top 25 teams in the March rankings, will advance straight to the group stage in the second of the joint qualifiers beginning November.
As Malaysia (1066.6 points), only having a small margin lead of 4.21 points against Hong Kong in the FIFA rankings, Pan Gon said they couldn’t be too passionate to play big teams and lose points.
Meanwhile, the South Korean coach is positive that, playing at Johor Darul Ta’zim’s (JDT) Sultan Ibrahim Stadium, having a Zeon Zoysia pitch equal to the World Cup venues in Qatar, would help the Harimau Malaya to face Asia’s powerhouses in the 2023 Asian Cup, early next year.
“Playing in the cow-grass (at Bukit Jalil) helped us as our opponents struggled sometimes, but it is also difficult when we wanted to play fast games. It is a timely move to play in the JDT Stadium, which has a beautiful pitch to prepare for the World Cup stadiums in Qatar,” he added.
Asked about call up for upcoming training camps, after having different set of players for the Asian Cup qualifiers last year and the recent AFF Cup, Pan Gon said he made a strategic call up based on their performance.
“No players have a guaranteed spot in the Asian Cup team, they have to fight each other and prove themselves to be in the squad during each call up,” he said. -Bernama
