Football: Malaysia off to winning start with new coach Kim Pan-gon

SINGAPORE - The Kim Pan-gon era has begun with a bang for Malaysia as they beat the Philippines 2-0 in the Football Association of Singapore Tri-Nations Series opener at the National Stadium on Wednesday (March 23).

The former Korea Football Association technical director took over the reins from head coach Tan Cheng Hoe in January and brought four coaching staff with him.

In just two months, the 52-year-old has already made his mark on the Harimau Malaya, who played confident, aggressive attacking football to snap a run of five draws against the Azkals.

Only four players who started their last match - a 4-1 defeat by Indonesia at the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup last December - made Kim's first XI, who featured seven players from top Malaysian club Johor Darul Takzim.

This certainly helped with the team chemistry as La'Vere Corbin-Ong and Akhyar Rashid combined well on the left early on for Akhyar to open the scoring in front of 1,634 fans. The 22-year-old sold debutant Enrique Linares a delightful dummy before thumping a right-footer past Neil Etheridge after less than three minutes.

Two minutes later, Syafiq Ahmad struck the post before Kogileswaran Raj's effort was cleared off the line.

In contrast, the Filipinos named a formidable side on paper comprising footballers born or based in Europe, but who mostly played like strangers.

With a 4-3-3 formation, Malaysia made their wing-play superiority count as they doubled their lead via a 25th-minute counterattack, as Akhyar collected a beautiful cross from the right by Syafiq and blasted into the top corner with his left foot.

The winger could have claimed a hat-trick in first-half added time, but rolled his shot wide with only Etheridge to beat.

The Philippines, in a 3-5-2 formation, continued to struggle to carve out clear opportunities. They came closest to halving the deficit in the 67th minute, but Patrick Reichelt could only shoot straight at Farizal Marlias.

Post-match, Kim thanked his players for showing as much passion and desire in the match as they did in eight days of training.

He added: “We have good players, and I encouraged them to believe in themselves. So, not just tactically, but also mentally and in terms of team spirit... it was a very good reaction from the players.

“In the second half, we changed six players but kept our shape and performance.”

Energetic right-back and Man of the Match Dion Cools was pleased with how effective they were on the wings and added: “Tonight, we saw different types of pressure and building up. We saw the kind of structure that we are trying to build. It will take time and it was a good start today.”

Malaysia will play Singapore on Saturday before the Lions take on the Philippines on Tuesday. Both matches kick off at 8pm at the National Stadium and have a maximum capacity of 15,000 owing to safe management measures.

Tickets for both matches can be purchased at this website.