Escaping the loss against Singapore U23, Malaysia U23 maintained the top spot in Group B

Starting lineup:

Singapore U23: Zaiful Nizam, Sanizal, Kanadi, Sazali, Stewart, Shahiran, Stewart, Arifin, Chew, Nadim, Chua.

Malaysia U23: Ghani, Quentin Cheng, Amer, Haiqal, Ajmal, Syahiran, Hakim, Khalili, Bashah, Mazlan, Asri.

Scored: Shahiran (7′), Stewart (78′) – Hakim (4′), Azhar (82′).

In the 4th minute, U23 Malaysia took advantage of the mistake of Singapore U23’s defense to score a 1-0 lead. Striker Luqman Hakim was the one who opened the scoring for the yellow shirt team.

However, the joy of Malaysia U23 did not last long, because just 7 minutes later, Shah Shahiran launched a “long-range cannon” that did not give goalkeeper Azri Ghani a chance to save, equalizing the score 1. -1 for Singapore U23.

For the rest of the first half, the game was in full swing. Singapore U23 and Malaysia U23 strikers created a lot of turbulent situations towards each other’s goal but no more goals were scored.

In the second half, Malaysia U23 decided to increase the tempo of the match in search of a goal. In the 47th minute, Azfar Fikri Azhar had a header that leaked along the Singapore U23 goal in the helplessness of goalkeeper Zaiful Nizam. Unfortunately, no player in the yellow shirt had time to enter the back stone.

Despite facing a lot of pressure from the opponent, Singapore U23 still played very defensively. Occasionally, the students of coach Nazri Nasir also organized a number of sharp counterattacks towards the Malaysian U23 goal.

Busy attacking without scoring more goals, Malaysia U23 had to pay with a second goal after 78 minutes. Receiving a free kick from Shah Shahiran’s left wing, Harhys Stewart hit 2 shots in a row. netting goalkeeper Zaiful Nizam, raising the score to 2-1 for Singapore U23.

Exactly 4 minutes later, Nik Mat hung the ball as if placed from a corner on the right wing into the penalty area for Azfar Fikri Azhar to bounce high and hit goalkeeper Zaiful Nizam, equalizing the score 2-2 for Malaysia U23. This is also the final result of this match.

With 7 points obtained after 3 matches, U23 Malaysia still leads Group B. U23 Singapore ranked 2nd with 5 points from 4 matches, 2 points more than Thailand U23 but kicked 2 more matches. That means, the chances of going on for the lion island team are very low.