PETALING JAYA, Sept 7 – National men’s football team, Harimau Malaya, are hoping to end over a decade of trophy drought by winning the 2024 Pestabola Merdeka on Sunday.
Ranked 134th in the world, Harimau Malaya, now coached by Spaniard Pau Marti Vicente, are set to face Lebanon (ranked 116th) in the final at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, tomorrow night (9 pm), after last having lifted the title in the 2013 edition, besides the 2010 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Cup victory.
Vicente said Harimau Malaya are ready for the final in the endevour to rejuvenate the national team and give fresh hopes to the fans .
“This group of players is playing together for a long time now, and they know each other and I think they went through a lot of things together. They deserve to get this trophy, that’s why this has to be my motivation as coach, to help them achieve this Merdeka tournament success.
“Even though it is difficult to be perfect in football, we try to have our best to be organised in attacking and defending as we expect a very tough opponent. We must be very strong, very solid, and be more aggressive when we have the chances in front of goal,” he said in a pre match press conference here, today.
Commenting on Harimau Malaya’s worrying record against the physically stronger Middle Eastern teams, Vicente, who was assistant to former head coach Kim Pan Gon, said the team will be tactically and mentally prepared for the challenge.
“In the last two years, we play against very strong opponents, similar to Lebanon. We had played Oman, Jordan and Syria, which I think are quite similar.
“But we learned from it, so we need to show how we can adapt on these situations, and sometimes these games can be very difficult to predict, but I think we need to be ready for that tactically, first and then mentally,” he said.
Malaysia had never won a game in six recent matches against the Middle East teams like Syria, Oman, Jordan and Bahrain in various competitions.
