A team winning a treble for two consecutive years is an amazing feat and a team winning four titles in two consecutive years is even more remarkable. That was how one could describe Johor Darul Ta’zim’s triumph in Friday’s 2023 Malaysia Cup final, as the Southern Tigers further strengthened their monopoly over Malaysian football with a 3-1 win over Terengganu FC at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium, ensuring that JDT performed a clean sweep of Malaysian football for a second consecutive year.
Having won this season’s Liga Super Malaysia, Malaysia FA Cup, and the Piala Sumbangsih, JDT were heavy favorites coming into Friday’s Malaysia Cup final, even with Terengganu fielding their best team and the Bukit Jalil pitch being less than ideal.
Referee S. Logeswaran came into intense scrutiny after the match and it was for a very good reason as he had awarded three controversial penalties throughout the match – the first of which happening in the 6th minute after a soft challenge within the area by Azam Azmi.
The deadly predator that he is, Bergson converted from the spot to make it 1-0 to JDT.
Logeswaran then came into the spotlight once again after JDT captain Jordi Amat had landed a harsh challenge within the box on Terengganu’s Ivan Mamut in the 19th minute. The foul was red card-worthy but Logeswaran decided against sending off Indonesia international Amat, taking a good two minutes in deliberating his decision as he resorted to only punish Amat with a yellow card.
Once the whole fiasco had died down, Mamut took it upon himself to dispatch the spot-kick, landing the equalizer past JDT goalie Syihan Hazmi.
After that the match was pretty much business as usual for JDT. Shrugging off the poor pitch conditions aside, the Southern Tigers made it 2-1 in the 73rd minute thanks to substitute Feroz Baharudin, before Logeswaran awarded his third penalty of the night – this time to JDT in the third minute of injury time.
Arif Aiman coolly dispatched the penalty past Suhaimi Husin in the Terengganu goal to seal JDT’s fourth Malaysia Cup title and cap off yet another successful season for the Southern Tigers.