Nevertheless, it was surprising to see that the Malaysian team had already "sealed the win" in the match against China. Their control of the ball was not low, creating nearly 60% of the shots on goal for the Malaysian team, five of which were in the opponent's penalty area, which was their "report card". However, this was not a match against Japan or Korea, but between China and Malaysia!
Those familiar names cannot change the facts. In the face of Malaysia's performance and scores, we are doomed to hopelessness and the road ahead is full of thorns.
Fantasy and reality are worlds apart.
"How can Malaysia win?" This has become a question in the minds of many fans. However, the imagination is far from the reality. Apart from the similarity of the above mentioned statistics, we did not have a dominant performance in the match.
At the beginning of the match, Malaysia took advantage of the sides and created several breakthrough opportunities, pressuring the national football team's backs and center backs through the center forward and forward line, locking down space and providing a platform for the side players to showcase their skills. This strategy has been tried and tested time and again, and the shot on goal in the 6th minute was a successful attempt.
The Olympic team did not find an effective way to crack the game, but luckily they also adopted a similar tactic, which was jokingly called "half a catty eight taels". Liu Zhurun also had a chance to shoot from the side, but unfortunately, the quality of the shot was too poor to be a threat.
Both teams looked for breakthroughs on the wing, but Malaysia's individual ability was much better, especially in terms of wide-area advances and individual skill in distributing, passing, carrying and shooting. It was both amazing and intimidating.
The Olympic team had a brief comeback before the end of the first half but failed to convert into a goal. In the post-match replay, the Malaysian defenders were tired and their fitness dropped leading to poor play.
The Olympic team has given Malaysia great confidence.
The second half started with a clear sense of confrontation between the Olympic team and Malaysia. Both teams had the intention to open up the field to fight against each other, and there was a big gap in the center of the field. However, both teams seemed to have some "rough" attributes and were unable to send chances into the penalty area, so the score remained 0-0.
From the 75th minute onwards, the Olympic team bottled up physically and it was like a classic drama of "passing on" to the big brother. Whenever we are in this situation, we can never keep up with the pace of our opponents, even if they are the Malaysian Olympic team. Finally, in the 80th minute, Malaysia counterattacked and almost broke the goal. In the 85th minute, they almost scored with a low shot from inside the penalty area, and in the 95th minute, the killer came.
Undoubtedly, it was the autonomous slackness of the Olympic team that gave Malaysia the confidence to realize that they could really beat the Olympic team and China. After this battle, the last three confrontations between the two sides have resulted in 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss for the Olympics. Why should Malaysia fear us?
Our own decline gave confidence to the opposition; gradually, even Malaysia no longer feared the national soccer team (Olympic Games), so we had almost no opponents to hand-drill.
We should have realized that we were up against Syria, Iraq and Vietnam (including Thailand and Malaysia), and were aiming for 3.5 places out of almost 9 teams in the expanded WC (Japan, South Korea, Australia and Iran were essentially guaranteed to qualify). Now, the youth teams have given "the answer" and they can't beat Malaysia. Is this the future we all want? Is it a sure thing that we'll easily make it to the World Cup after 2026?
