Before the 2014 edition, the AFF Championship Top Scorer Award always won by strikers. Bambang Pamungkas, Agu Casmir, Teerasil Dangda and Safee Sali are among other South East Asian finest who’ve won the award. But in 2014, a new name from other position has broken the tradition. A central midfielder stepped forward as he scored more goals than any other strikers. His name is Mohammad Safiq Rahim.
Safiq scored 6 goals in 7 matches. 2 goals ahead of Charyl Chappuis (Thailand) and Le Cong Vinh (Vietnam). He recorded a perfect 100% shot accuracy in the competition. That means, all of his 6 goals were scored with the same number of shots-on-goal. Also, he might as well wear the golden boot on his right foot as he scored all those goals using it.
The man from Selangor actually scored 4 out of those 6 goals from penalty. Nevertheless, goal from the spot is still counted as goal. Thereunto, he scored those penalties on high-stake matches.
Safiq’s worst victim goalkeeper was none other than Thailand’s Kawin Thamsatchanan. He put 3 goals into Kawin’s net in 3 occasions, with 3 kinds of play: open, set piece, and penalty.
Another fun fact, throughout the competition, Safiq has scored his goals in 4 different stadiums of 4 different cities which are located in 3 different countries. He scored one at Jalan Besar Stadium, Singapore, and another one at National Stadium of the city-state. Then, he scored 2 goals against Vietnam, one at Shah Alam Stadium, Selangor, and another one in My Dinh Stadium, Ha Noi. Lastly, he scored 2 goals in the second leg final in Bukit Jalil National Stadium, Kuala Lumpur.
Chopot, as he is famously called in his country, also had a very delicate selection of trajectory on which part of the opponent’s goal he would score to. He shared the number of goals equally to both bottom-corners of the goal: 3 to bottom-left, 3 to bottom-right.
Apart from his goal-scoring attributes, Safiq completed 227 passes in his 561 involvement in Malaysia’s campaign. One of those passes contributed to a goal, which was scored by Amri Yahyah. He made 10 successful tackles with 34.4% success rate.
Here is the more detailed statistical facts on Safiq Rahim, the Top Scorer of the 2014 AFF Championship (click on image to enlarge).
