Recon time: The Malaysian players led by coach Kim Pan-gon (third from right) checking out the Al Janoub Stadium in Doha where they take on Jordan in their Asian Cup match today. — FAM
PETALING JAYA: Matthew Davies, one of the team captains, is ready to seize the moment with one goal in mind – to turn Malaysia’s underdog tag into giantkillers in the Asian Cup.
They have a chance to do so when they face Jordan in their opening Group E match today at the Al Janoub Stadium in Doha at 8.30pm (1.30am Malaysian time).
On paper Jordan who are ranked 87th in the FIFA world ranking are the favourites compared with Malaysia who are ranked 130th.
But the squad led by Davies are hoping to create history by winning or at least collecting a point in the match to boost the team’s chances of making the last 16.
Davies said the team did not want to waste their opportunity as, afterall, they have qualified for the Asian Cup on merit after 44 years. They competed 17 years ago but by virtue of being the hosts.
“To be realistic, we are the underdogs going into this tournament. That’s positive because the pressure is on the other teams. We have come here to enjoy, learn and play our style of football,” said Davies.
“But we know, we are capable of challenging them. We are confident but our fans have to be realistic too.”
Davies, who would take on top wingers in the region like Ali Olwan and Mousa Al-Tamari, said Jordan had many individual quality in the team.
“They have a lot of individual quality in their group but we can’t focus too much on stopping one player.
“If we shut one down, there will be six to seven others coming at us. This has to be a team effort to stop the quality of Jordan,” he said.
The other players in Jordan who can cause problems are Yazan Al-Naimat and midfielder Rajaei Ayed.
But Malaysia too have their own quality attackers in the form of wingers Arif Aiman Hanapi, Faisal Halim and strikers Darren Lok and Romel Morales.
While the team are a ball of emotion right now, Davies is thankful to the coaching staff with head coach Kim Pan-gon at the helm, for taking the limelight away from them.
“Coach Pan-gon has sheltered us from all the excitement and guided us from being nervous too. We have been focused and doing our own thing. We are not caught up by the hype of the tournament,” he said.
“We have shown that we can compete against higher-ranked nations and we hope to showcase the preparation we have done through our performances,” he added.
Based on statistics, Malaysia have failed to register a win against Jordan in five previous meetings, losing three and drawing two and the last time Malaysia played Jordan was during an international friendly in 2001 which ended in a 0-4 loss.
However, Jordan, coached by Moroccan Hussein Ammouta, has not been enjoying an impressive track record lately because they were able to register only three wins in 11 matches.
If Malaysia aspire to register a positive result in their encounter against Jordan, they need to defuse the threat posed by one of Jordan’s prolific strikers Hamzah Al Dardour who also happens to be the country’s top scorer with 33 goals thus far.
Jordan are appearing in the Asia Cup for the fifth time and had qualified for the quarter-finals twice, namely in 2004 and 2011 while Malaysia have not advanced from the group stages in three previous campaigns.
