PETALING JAYA: National goalkeeper Nur Azurin Mazlan (pic) wants to get off to a sizzling start in the AFF Women’s Championship starting today in Manila to make amends for missing out on the last SEA Games.
Malaysia will play Singapore in their opening Group A match at the Rizal Memorial Stadium and it will be the national women football team’s first international event this year.
The others in their group are Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia while Group B consists of Vietnam, Myanmar, Timor Leste, Cambodia and Laos.
The women’s team were not selected for the recent Vietnam SEA Games, and they also failed to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup after losing out to Thailand by three points in the qualification stage in Palestine last year.
Azurin wants her team to focus on winning against Singapore and Indonesia because it will get tougher after that.
“We should win the first two matches as it will get harder after that. We have to try our best to minimise the score differences,” said Azurin.
“It’s obvious that we are far behind Australia in terms of our physical game but we can always counter it with better strategies.’’
The team had friendly matches against Bangladesh in Dhaka on June 23 and 26 but the results were not ideal as they lost 0-6 in the first game but managed to end the second game with a goaless draw.
But midfielder Ji Fedalliah Claritta Jaimin said they learned a lot from the friendlies in terms of playing and preparing for games.
“We made a lot of mistakes but we learned from it. We’re physically and mentally ready for the championship,” said Fedalliah.
“This championship will be part of our preparation for next year’s SEA Games in Cambodia.”
On their chance in the opener, coach Jacob Joseph said: “We have an equal chance against Singapore. They too had friendly matches against Hong Kong after playing in the Hanoi Games.”
