Cheng Hoe blames sloppy start for Harimau Malaya's defeat to China

KUALA LUMPUR: Interim coach Tan Cheng Hoe blamed the two early goals for Harimau Malaya's 2-0 defeat to China in a friendly in Guangdong on Saturday.

Playing at the Zhaoqing New District Sports Centre, the world No. 96 hosts took the lead in the 10th minute through a Wang Yudong header before Zhang Yuning doubled the advantage nine minutes later.

Cheng Hoe said the setback forced his team to make several changes to their game plan.

"I am certainly disappointed with this result because we conceded two goals, especially the early goal in the opening 10 minutes, which put us in a difficult situation to bounce back.

"In football, it becomes very difficult when you fall two goals behind early in the game because you have to change several things in the team," he said at a post-match press conference.

Despite the result, which extended Malaysia's 46-year winless run against China since 1980, the 58-year-old praised his players for a stronger second-half display after introducing Haziq Kutty Abba and Richard Chin.

"We brought on two players, Haziq and Richard. We tried to play with a more attacking approach because we needed an early goal in the second half to boost confidence before trying to get an equaliser.

"In the second half, we played much better. We controlled the ball well and created more chances," he said.

Harimau Malaya thought they had reduced the deficit in the 77th minute when Fergus Tierney fired a shot from outside the box into the net.

However, their celebrations were cut short after a VAR review ruled out the goal following a foul by Safwan Mazlan earlier in the attacking move.

Tierney's difficult evening ended with a red card in the 90th minute after he received a second booking for retaliating following a foul by Alex Yang.

World No. 133 Malaysia will next face 144th-ranked Yemen in another friendly at the same venue on Tuesday.