Kuala Lumpur City FC’s fairy tale run in the AFC Cup continues after the City Boys booked their ticket for the competition’s final on Wednesday. The reigning Malaysia Cup winners managed to beat the odds and knock out Sogdiana Jizzakh of Uzbekistan in the inter-zone final on penalties, thanks to the heroics of one Kevin Ray Mendoza in between the sticks.
Having knocked out Viettel FC and PSM Makassar to emerge as kings of the ASEAN Zone, Kuala Lumpur followed up their impressive regional performance by eliminating India’s ATK Mohun Bagan in the inter-zone semifinal, thus setting up a tasty tie against a Sogdiana side who had won all five games that they had played so far in the AFC Cup, which includes a 1-0 win over Hong Kong’s Eastern Long Lions in the inter-zone semifinal.
Bojan Hodak’s men were undeterred by the cold temperatures at Sogdiana’s Sogdiyona Sport Majmuasi and the City Boys’ defenses managed to soak up pressure after pressure from the dominant hosts. Sogdiana, who had scored 13 times throughout their five AFC Cup games so far, peppered the Kuala Lumpur defense with shot after shot, however Filipino international Mendoza managed to stood strong and deny the Uzbeks at every given opportunity.
Kuala Lumpur did have their own chances too through Paulo Josue, Romel Morales, and Irfan Zakaria, but neither of them were able to find a way past Sogdiana’s defense as the match ended in a 0-0 stalemate after 90 minutes.
Extra time saw more of the same – Sogdiana bombarding Kuala Lumpur’s defense in an attempt to grab themselves a goal, but Mendoza and his defense – consisting of Giancarlo Gallifuocco, Kamal Azizi, Zakaria, Declan Lambert and his substitute Anwar Ibrahim – managed to rally themselves together and deny the hosts, frustrating the Uzbeks to no end.
With the match ending in a goalless stalemate after 120 minutes, a penalty shootout was the only way to decide the winner of this tie and Sogdiana head coach Ulugbek Bakaev decided to replace his main goalkeeper Milan Mitrovic with Shirinboy Abdullaev in a gambit to secure something from the shootout. The gambit backfired spectacularly as Josue, Romel, Hadin Azman and Akram Mahinan managed to slot their penalties perfectly, while Sogdiana had Shakhboz Djurabekov’s penalty being saved by Mendoza despite their other shooters finding the target as well.
This sets the stage for Australian defender Giancarlo to seal Kuala Lumpur’s spot in this year’s AFC Cup final with a perfect penalty, cementing a 5-3 shootout win for the City Boys.
For October 22nd’s final, Kuala Lumpur will host Omani side Al-Seeb at the KLFA Stadium in Cheras, with Al-Seeb having thrashed Bahraini side Al-Riffa 4-0 on Wednesday to advance into the final as kings of the West Zone. A win in the final would ensure that Kuala Lumpur would emulate Johor Darul Ta’zim’s class of 2015, with the Southern Tigers beating FC Istiklol of Tajikistan 1-0 thanks to a Leandro Velazquez goal to win them their first and so far only AFC Cup title. It was Malaysia and ASEAN’s only AFC Cup trophy to date, and only the second time in the history of the competition that a team from outside West Asia had won it.