AFC U-19 Championship: Malaysia fall to Saudi Arabia in opener
-A A+
Gabriel Tan
Malaysia opened their 2018 AFC U-19 Championship campaign with a defeat on Saturday after losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia at the Patriot Candrabhaga Stadium.
Although the Malaysians looked the brighter of the two sides in the early exchanges, Saudi Arabia eventually gained a stranglehold on proceedings and duly opened the scoring in the 24th minute.
It was Turki Al-Ammar who benefitted from a touch of fortune as a long ball from the back skimmed off Zahril Azri’s head and sent him racing through, where he calmly skipped past opposition goalkeeper Azri Abdul Ghani to score.
And, in what turned out to be a dominant first-half display, the Saudis could have easily added plenty more had it not been for the heroics of Azri.
Twice, he produced fine saves to keep out goal-bound headers from Firas Al-Birakan and also brilliantly denied Al-Ammar a second from the penalty spot, with the Saudi scorer also having another effort disallowed for offside.
However, Saudi Arabia’s persistence eventually paid off in the 78th minute when their two substitutes combined to devastating effect.
An enterprising run through the middle by Abdulmohsen Al-Qahtani eventually saw him release Salem Al-Saleem, who made no mistake in poking his shot into the bottom corner.
There was still time for one more piece of late drama when Hadi Fayyadh pulled one back for Malaysia with two minutes remaining, having been alert to the rebound to net with a simple finish after Shivan Pillay’s deft touch on a Nik Akif Syahiran freekick came back off the post.
Nonetheless, it proved to be too little too late for Bojan Hodak’s young charges as Saudi Arabia held on to a deserving win to tentatively go top of Group D, with the game against Tajikistan and China PR to come later on Saturday evening.
SAUDI ARABIA: Abdulrahman Al-Shammari, Muhannad Al-Shanqeeti, Hassan Al-Tambakti, Naif Almas, Hazim Al-Zahrani, Mansor Al-Beshe (Salem Al-Saleem 72’), Saud Abdulhamid, Faraj Al-Ghashayan, Turki Al-Ammar, Khalid Al-Ghannam (Abdulmohsen Al-Qahtani 70’), Firas Al-Birakan (Abdullah Al-Hamdan 86’).
MALAYSIA: Azri Abdul Ghani, Anwar Ibrahim (Feroz Baharudin 79’), Syaiful Alias, Shivan Pillay, Ahmad Tasnim Fitri, Zahril Azri, K. Thivandaran, Nurfais Johari (Ramadhan Saifullah 69’), Nik Akif Syahiran, Izreen Izwandy (Akhyar Rashid 55’), Hadi Fayyadh.
https://www.foxsportsasia.com/football/asian-football/957036/afc-u-19-championship-malaysia-fall-to-saudi-arabia-in-opener/
