Vingada ‘brewing’ remedy to end plague for Harimau Malaya

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Vingada with the Harimau Malaya team during training session. — Bernama photo

MELAKA: Malaysia head coach Nelo Vingada is ‘brewing’ his own remedy for the finishing ‘plague’ that has haunted Harimau Malaya players for so long, ahead of the Asian Cup 2019 qualifying game against Hong Kong tomorrow.

For starters, he said, the players had to understand that putting the goal into the net via good finishing is the job of the whole team that needs to play well together and execute the game plan perfectly, thus finishing is not the job of the strikers alone.

“We played well in the previous three games and we are improving, but we are missing that (finishing) solution in our team. However, I don’t want to bring that solution (only) for the strikers; the solution is for the (whole) team.

“I believe that all players including the strikers are the best goal scorers. For example, Safiq Rahim (midfielder) is a proven goal scorer for his club and country, so all the players must give their full effort from start to finish,” he told a press conference, here, yesterday.

The game tomorrow at Hang Jebat Stadium, Krubong will be Harimau Malaya’s fourth under Vingada, the first being the Asian Cup 2019 qualifying game against Lebanon where Harimau Malaya were beaten 1-2, also 1-2 in a friendly against Syria and 0-1 in another against Myanmar.

The two Harimau Malaya goals were in the game against Lebanon where Mahali Jasuli scored after an error by their opponents’ goalkeeper and when Darren Lok scored from the penalty spot in the game against Syria.

Vingada said around 99 per cent of the teams in Malaysia had the same finishing problem and he was concerned for the future if there were no efforts to eradicate that problem like through a better player development programme.

“Actually, Malaysia have very good players and we are looking at preparing them to be better finishers, so they need more chances to play to enhance their skills and ability,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong head coach Kim Pan-Gon said he was worried about the aggressive counter- attack and tight defending that had been demonstrated by the Malaysian team.

“We are trying to transform our team into a more proactive and offensive team, so we will play attacking football tomorrow and will try to dominate the game. We have to plan well to break into the Malaysian tight defence,” he said. — Bernama