Teammates celebrate Shaiful Esah’s (#3, third from left) free kick goal that gave the LionsXII a 2-1 lead. (Photo courtesy of FAS)
Jalan Besar Stadium, Saturday, August 25, 2012 — The Singapore LionsXII beat visiting Selangor PKNS 3-1 to record their first win in the Malaysia Cup. However, a crowd of only 3,300 was on hand to watch the first Malaysia home match in 18 years.
The lowest crowd figure previously during the Malaysian Super League had not dipped below the 6,200 mark.
The win comes after a 0-0 draw against Johor FC in their opening group game.
The visitors went ahead early, scoring through Fazli Baharudin in the seventh minute after Fauzan Dzulkifli had put him through.
The LionsXII reply was swift. Just five minutes later, Shahril Ishak put in a cross from the right for Khairul Amri to score his first LionsXII goal to make it 1-1.
The LionsXII then went ahead in the 18th minute. Shaiful Esah hit a perfect free-kick into the top corner from long range to make it 2-1, lead that the home team took into the half-time break.
Two minutes after the restart, the LionsXII scored again. Hariss Harun’s cutback was finished off by Shahril for a 3-1 lead.
“I think it’s was a good display by my side,” said PKNS head coach Haji Abdul Rahman Ibrahim. “Knowing the LIONSXII were a better side, we cannot deny that. We were tactically sound, but however, we need experience at this level of football. Except for our two foreigners, the rest of the boys are locals and we even took two players from the second division for this match and they looked lost in the last 20 minutes.”
“I think we deserved a better result than this, but I still want to congratulate the LionsXII as they were the better team,” added the PKNS coach.
For LionsXII head coach, V. Sundramoorthy, the victory was a good one but felt the boys could perform better.
“It’s always going to be difficult because we are just coming back from the fasting month and this is just our second game. I think that the team will be getting better with more games under the belt,” said Sundram.
“It is not easy for the players to play back to back games. We will go back and have a good rest and prepare for the next game,” he added.
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