source: affsuzukicup.com
No team dared enough to put their fans on a roller-coaster ride of emotion in the 2014 AFF Championship other than Malaysia. Dollah Salleh’s squad went through up-and-down episodes on each matches in the competition. Though it ended rather sadly for them, the Malayan Tigers had their chins up and received round of applause from many people in South East Asia.
Dollah had the littlest of time to prepare his squad for the competition. He decided to rely on capped players such as Shukor Adan, Indra Putra Mahayuddin, and Amri Yahyah. He completed the team with several youngsters in the likes of Gary Robbat, Zubir Azmi, and Fadhli Shas.
Malaysia were drawn in the “Group of Death” alongside Myanmar, Thailand, and co-host Singapore. The campaign seemed to be ended with an early exit as they only managed to win a single point in their first 2 matches. Playing with 10 men for almost an hour against Myanmar, they were quite the fortunate to gain a point from a scoreless draw.
Their second match against Thailand was an interesting one. They went ahead twice before the Thais quieted them down in the last minute. The match ended 3-2 in favor of Thailand and put Malaysia in a must-win situation in their last match.
Playing against Singapore, their neighbor across the causeway, Malaysia took the lead in the 61st minute by a goal from Safee Sali. Singapore, who only needed a draw to qualify, then equalized in the 83rd minute. As the match was coming to an end, the wind turned to the Malaysians. The referee punished Singapore with a penalty at the added-minutes, which was successfully converted by Safiq Rahim. Not too long after the spot-kick, Malaysia added another goal on a quick counter-attack. Indra Putra simply placed the ball inside an unguarded net and ensured the ticket to the semifinals for his team. Malaysia survived the “Group of Death” in a dramatic fashion.
Vietnam was Malaysia’s opponent in the semifinals. They hosted the first leg at Shah Alam Stadium, Selangor in front of the Malayan Ultras. Another Safiq’s spot kick took Malaysia to lead in the 14th minute. That didn’t last long, though, as Vietnam equalized in the 32nd minute. All the more, Vietnam turned the table over to their favor by scoring another goal in the second half. The match ended 2-1 for Vietnam and tasked Malaysia with a tough travel to Ha Noi in the return leg.
Dollah made several changes in his starting eleven to adjust to the situation. They need at least 2 goals to even Vietnam’s away goal record as well as to get ahead on aggregate. The experienced players played their parts nicely in this kind of circumstances. In less than 20 minutes, they completed the minimum requirements and went ahead 2-0 with another one of Safiq’s spot kick and Norshahrul’s persistent effort. Vietnam struck back with Le Cong Vinh’s penalty and even the score on aggregate. But Malaysia took advantage of the edgy Vietnamese defense and put another 2 goals before the first half ended. Malaysia trailed Vietnam 4-1 as the referee sent the players for the break.
In the second half, Dollah instructed his player to sit back and focus on defense. The strategy was quite sturdy and able to hold Vietnam’s aggression. Though Cong Vinh successfully exploited an error and scored his second of the match. The end result was good enough to sling Malaysia out of the furnace for the second time and up to the finals. Very few people believed that such thing could happen.
Thailand, who beat Malaysia in the group stage already awaited in the finals. Malaysia traveled to Bangkok for the first leg only to found themselves quite-severely beaten by 2 goals to nothing.
The climax of the competition came out in the 2nd leg final. Malaysia needed 2 goals to even the score and addition of that number would bring them ahead on aggregate. The Bukit Jalil National Stadium then erupted ecstatically as Safiq and Indra took Malaysia ahead by 2 goals in the first half. Subsequently in the second half, Safiq completed his brace with a stunning free kick. The 3-goal lead was enough to pull the “Park the Bus” strategy.
Unfortunately, Thailand found a way through the bus in the last 8 minutes of the match. They scored one in the 82nd minute and put them ahead on away goal rule. The goal seemed to have brought down Malaysia’s morale as they were conceded another one 5 minutes later. The match ended with a 3-2 win for Malaysia, but Thailand triumphed with 5-4 on aggregate. That wrapped up Malaysia’s roller-coaster ride in the competition.
Malaysia noted several negative statistical records in the competition, especially in terms of discipline. They committed more fouls than any other teams, totaling in 140 fouls committed. That number is almost half of Philippines’ in second (74). They also received most number of yellow cards with 20, whereas Vietnam in second only got 9 yellow cards.
Safiq Rahim & co. completed 1,561 passes in 7 matches which came up with the lowest passing accuracy of 68.6 % among other participants. Safiq himself was Malaysia’s player with most successful pass with 227 and 79.9% accuracy.
On the plus side, with 6 goals, Safiq was awarded Top Scorer of the competition. He scored those goals with 6 shots on target which resulted in 100% shot accuracy. He became the first non-forward player who won the award.
Malaysia also recorded most successful header of the competition with 376 in total. The 35-year-old Shukor Adan made more headers than any other players with 58 headers in 6 matches. He also became the competition’s oldest goal scorer when he, of course, headed a goal into Vietnam’s net in the 2nd leg semifinal.
Here is the more detailed statistical facts on Malaysia in the 2014 AFF Championship (click on image to enlarge).
