PETALING JAYA: Chin up, Azam Azmi Murad.
Malaysian captain Faisal Halim said the 21-year-old defender should not feel bad for receiving a controversial red card against Vietnam.
Malaysia’s hopes of reaching the knockout stage suffered a setback after they were beaten 0-3 by the hosts in Group B.
The defeat is a bitter pill to swallow as the Harimau Malaya had the advantage of playing with an extra man for half an hour after Vietnam’s Nguyen Van Toan was sent off in the 33rd minute.
But it was the decision to award a penalty to Vietnam by Japanese referee Ryuji Sato for what looked like a coming together between Azam and Doan Van Hau outside the penalty box that broke the rhythm of the Malaysians.
It was made worse after Sato flashed the red card to Azam. Que Ngoc Hai converted the ensuing spot-kick to double Vietnam’s lead.
“Sometimes there are mistakes. We had the advantage of playing with 11 players against 10, and then we lost that advantage ... so we can’t talk about the referee. The referee does his job, we do ours,” said Faisal.
He hoped Azam would take things in his stride and treat the incident as a good lesson for the future.
“We should not blame Azam alone for this defeat. We have young players who need to learn such things. This mistake can punish the whole team,” he said.
“As the captain, I don’t blame my teammates, we need to give them encouragement.
“Azam has done a very good job. One mistake, one experience, he can learn from it. It will be a great experience for him as a player,” he said.
Faisal, however, did not hide his disappointment in failing to achieve their mission to get three points.
“We are really disappointed. We came ready to win. At the beginning of the game, we did have good opportunities, but there was just no luck finding the back of the net,” added Faisal, who has scored three goals in the competition so far.
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