Ticked off over ‘tiki-taka’

"We need to get the basics right. We can

PETALING JAYA: Felda United coach Nidzam Jamil gave his men a tongue-lashing for “trying to play like Barcelona” after the relegation battlers crashed 1-2 to Selangor in their Super League clash.

The Red Giants took a commanding lead through Sandro Da Silva in the 44th minute before Ifedayo Olusegun hit the net in the 51st at the Tun Abdul Razak Stadium in Jengka on Sunday.

The Fighters reduced the deficit through Jocinei Schad’s strike in the 63rd minute.

The club side remain rooted at the bottom of the 12-team table with 12 points from 18 matches and have four more to go against Kuala Lumpur (tomorrow), PKNP (July 14), Pahang (July 17) and Kedah (July 21) to save themselves from relegation.

Nidzam wants his boys to cut down on the schoolboy errors and also the tiki-taka type of short passing played by Barcelona.

“We need to get the basics right. We can’t be playing like Barcelona players, we don’t have that capability,” said Nidzam.

“Selangor scored because we failed to clear the ball from the danger zone. The players want to play short passes ... we can’t do that against Selangor who will punish us for sure.

“Some of our players have not even played 30 Super League matches. We can’t be correcting them all the time in the second half ... we can’t be thinking about making comebacks every time.

“We’ll be playing against relegation battlers KL and PKNP. Two teams will be relegated. It will be tough on all three of us.”

Selangor coach B. Sathianathan is happy with the win but worried over the players’ recovery as they will play Perak tomorrow at the Perak Stadium in Ipoh.

“We’re on the right track but we have three more tough matches to go. The first is against Perak. They have been together for three years and have quality foreign players,” said Sathianathan.