BY ZULHILMI ZAINAL Follow on Twitter
Following Malaysia's 4-1 defeat to Iraq in their Group C 2018 AFC U-23 Championship opener, the Young Tigers head coach Dato' Ong Kim Swee said that his side played better than what the final scoreline suggested.
He however rued the two mistakes made by his men, which led to Iraq's second and final goal.
"It's sad to see that the final result is 4-1, when we made two mistakes that we should have avoided making. At this stage, when you make silly mistakes like them you will be punished.
"But in overall the boys started believing in themselves after conceding an early goal in the fifth minute. They started playing and getting organised, and it showed that we can compete as long as we are more disciplined in our approach.
"We went up against a better team in terms of individual quality. Iraq have a very, very balanced side, we tried competing against them, but unfortunately we conceded two silly goals from our own mistakes," said Ong in the post-match press conference.
The former Malaysia senior team head coach however declined to comment on the incident that happened towards the end of the match, whereby Syazwan Andik's effort that had seemingly crossed the line was not counted as a goal by the referee.
"I need to look at the video as it's unfair for me to say whether it is a goal or not. What's important to me is our performance throughout the 90 minutes.
"I have to contextualise the incident as part of how we played," noted Ong.
Malaysia's next group match will be on Saturday, against Jordan.
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