KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur coach Miroslav Kuljanac admitted that conceding a first-minute goal had disrupted his team’s plans and they never really recovered after that.
Kuching City recovered from the disappointment of losing their last three games by beating KL 3-1 in a Super League match at the State Stadium in Kuching on Saturday. Despite being without two key players after James Okwuosa and Kipre Tchetche (pic) were given the marching orders in the second half of the match, the Cats still soldiered on to collect three valuable points.
Okwuosa gave Kuching City an early first-minute lead before Petrus Shitembi doubled the advantage in extra time of the first half.
KL captain Paulo Josue injected some morale into the team by narrowing the gap through a penalty in the 62nd minute.
Tchetche, however, restored the two-goal cushion for Kuching with the team’s third goal from the penalty spot in the 68th minute.
“Conceding as early as the first minute affected us because it took almost 20 minutes to get out of the state of shock. After we recovered, we conceded again and this is the result we deserve from this match,” said Kuljanac.
“After trailing 3-1, we tried to keep looking for a goal but failed no thanks to the opponent’s goalkeeper who was in top form. We were unlucky and in the last 25 minutes, the opponents resorted to time wasting but this is football,” he explained.
He also criticised the way the home team played, claiming that they often delayed the game, especially at the end of the match but he had to accept the result in the end.
