Aiman Nazirmuddin
Football Tribe Malaysia
Timor Leste prepare for their first match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign, where they travel to the Bukit Jalil Stadium to take on Malaysia.
Timor Leste’s captain, Joao Pedro da Silva Freitas, has discussed how his side’s performance has been improving following the introduction of a domestic league, which was set up two years ago.
“With domestic league rivals, football standards here can be improved and over the past two years, there are many positive developments that players have shown here.”
However, Timor Leste find themselves with a significant disadvantage from the get-go, as their home stadium was deemed unsuitable for use for the upcoming qualifiers, as it was during the 2018 AFF Cup. Effectively, this means that Timor Leste must play both legs of their tie against Malaysia at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium.
Despite being disappointed at being forced to play both games on the opponent’s turf, Joao Pedro still has hopes that this side can overturn the odds.
“But we will still give our best in both games,” he mentioned in a press conference yesterday.
Meanwhile, Timor Leste coach Norio Tsukitate mentioned that he has analyzed Malaysia’s game pattern, especially in their most recent friendly match last Sunday.
“Based on action against Nepal, I see Malaysia is a very organized team and controls most of the possession of the ball.”
The unpredictable weather this week has sparked concerns about the surface of the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil (SNBJ) ahead of the first playoff and was noted as a concern by Harimau Malaya’s coach Tan Cheng Hoe.
Clearly Cheng Hoe, he is ready with ‘Plan B’ to ensure their mission to win and get the best tonic ahead of the second action at the same venue, June 11 was achieved without any problems.
“We look forward to [the match] and I expect the surface of the pitch to be better than Nepal.
“Regardless, we know our players are familiar with such situations, [as] there are some stadiums that are not very good in the [domestic] league of Malaysia.
“We need to be flexible to make changes according to the circumstances needed,” he told the press ahead of the match.
Commenting on the action, Cheng Hoe wants his men to maintain consistent rhythm after successfully overcoming Nepal 2-0 on Sunday.
“The [layers need to keep going in the way we want. But it is not an easy task for us as Timor Leste is well prepared for the game.
“Most of their players are from AFF Suzuki Cup 2018 squad but we can not look down on not only having the speed but they have a lot of fighting spirit,” he said.