Kuala Lumpur City created history on Wednesday night when they emerged as South East Asian champions of the AFC Cup for the first time in their history, hammering Indonesia’s PSM Makassar, 5-2 in the final, a replay of their Group H encounter at the Kuala Lumpur Football Stadium in Bandar Tun Razak, Cheras. The City Boys now progress to the Inter Zone Semi-Final on September 7, 2022, where they most likely will be travelling away to meet South Asia Zone (Group D) winner ATK Mohun Bagan at their home in Kolkata, India.
A beaming and joyful Bojan, faced the media during the post-match press conference to express his thoughts of the game, in which his side raced to a 2-0 lead at halftime with goals from strikers Romel & Jordan, then tripling it just after the break through skipper Paulo Josue’s penalty. With the game’s destiny almost in their hands, the Red & White made the mistake of letting their foot off the gas pedal and were instantly punished when the opponents pulled two goals back in quick succession to silence the cheers in the stadium. Makassar’s desperation for the equaliser, allowed Bojan’s men to regain their three goal advantage near the closing minutes, Paulo Josue gaining his second of the match, then Hadin completed the rout with another penalty goal in injury time.
“Last year the Malaysia Cup was a real fairy-tale story. Now at the moment, we have the AFC Cup, this is also a fairy-tale story. Every story needs to have an end so still we are continuing a dream, hopefully with a happy ending at the end.”, the Croatian answered when quizzed on what the #sampaimatikualalumpur faithful can expect in this competition.
Pressed further on his thoughts above, Bojan explained.
“Well look. We didn’t expect to be here. How do I tell you? We don’t have any high expectations. We’re a hard-working team, we’re a small club, even in Malaysia we’re a small club, but we’re very hard-working.”
“And we know, all these matches in the group and now (in the knock-out’s), we’re going match by match. Nobody expect(ed) (that) we will win in Vietnam vs (a) team that is much better than us realistically. Today PSM (Makassar), they (were) supposed to be physically at a better level than in the group stage.”
“So next game I don’t know who it will be, is it (a) team from India (ATK Mohun Bagan), Hong Kong (Eastern Long Lions) or Uzbekistan (PFC Sogdiana), it will definitely be tough. Nobody who’s in this stage of the AFC Cup is a team that is not good, so focus on the next game, waiting on the next game, we will see.”
The 51 year old tactician who has produced successes in almost every team he touched was talking about the recent ban upon the All India Football Federation (AIFF) imposed by the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA), which also affects ATK Mohun Bagan’s involvement in the next round of the AFC Cup, and this would result in a disqualification of the South Asian Zone winner, paving a direct path for the City Boys to feature in the Inter-Zone Final either against East Asia Zone (Group J) winner (Eastern Long Lions) or the Central Zone champion (PFC Sogdiana), who will play each other in the first semi-final on September 6, 2022 in Jizzax, Uzbekistan.
Bojan though, was having none of it.
“Somehow in our way, last year and this (year), everything is always going (to get) more difficult, I believe we will be going to India to play.”, he said.
Commenting on the game, the head coach shared his opinion.
“I think that whoever came for the game, except PSM (Makassar) guys, (would have) enjoyed it. It was 7 goals, it was interesting. We were better (in the) first half. They didn’t have any chance. They had one shot in the last minute from 25 metres. So Azri never had (to make) any save.”
“After (leading) three nil, we stopped (a) little bit because we basically pushed them non-stop in the first half. We were pressing and scored three goals. For some of the boys, mentally (the) match was finished. Then we had two players who were not ready (to play) for 90 minutes.”
“We concede(d) two funny goals. First goal (in the 58th minute), nobody blocked the guy (Yakob Sayuri), second goal (in the 63rd minute), man (Akbar Tanjung) free jump in the six yard (box) which never happened (before).”
“We made 2 changes (in the 67th minute, Shaqirin for Ryan, Hadin for Romel), after this everything was okay again. At the end, 5-2. They start(ed) to (take) risk(s), they went (looking for the third goal), they push(ed) all their players up, (and then) we had a lot of chances for counter-attacks, (and from) some of the counterattacks we scored, that’s it.”
He also described the difference between this knock-out game and their earlier encounter last June.
“In the group stage (match), we dominate(d), so we knew today if we manage(d) to score goals it will be difficult (for PSM Makassar), because they (would) need to open (up) as during first half, they were sitting at the back. Once we scored (our) first and second goals (in the first half) it was a different game (compared to the previous meeting).”
Bojan also pointed out the issues leading to Romel and Ryan’s substitution.
“Romel was injured, I was supposed to take him out maybe a few minutes earlier (than I did) and also Ryan was not ready for 90 minutes because he didn’t play a full match for a long time.”
Ecstatic with the home support that came in numbers to throw their support as the 12th man, Bojan was hopeful that more and more City-zens would fill-up this 14,000 capacity stadium in the coming matches.
“I think that you can see that fans are getting more and more with every match. So look, of course this is Kuala Lumpur, you have 8 million people (here), there are many of them who want to come for football matches but nobody likes to lose. And in the last 20, 30 years, the club was a little bit sleepy, now something is happening. So with every win, you can expect that there will be more and more fans.”
While adding that today’s win was also a gift for the people of Malaysia.
“Hari Merdeka (is) coming soon, so maybe this can be a present from us.”
Bojan was also asked to comment on the quality of the M-League, considering today’s achievement.
I think that it’s already (the best league in South East Asia), all (other) South East Asian teams are out, so we are the best in AFC Cup South East Asia Zone. This is a very good thing for our league. Johor DT played (in the AFC) Champions League knockout stage and we went very far, so I think that this is really good news for the league.”
Seeing that the burly coach could go on and on answering questions from the floor tonight, the moderator decided one last question for the evening, and Bojan was asked on the importance of this win for the next few matches in the Super League where the City Boys have a September calendar full of daunting away visits beginning with high flying Sabah, resurgent Pahang and unpredictable Melaka U.
“Well, I think that every win is very important because the players get better with every win. So, we have (made) a little bit of changes, we change(d) the system, we change even sometimes 1 player, 2 players, (that) can make a difference.”
“Even sometimes you can see, for us (the) big problem was that Daniel Ting left, we have Declan who’s new. He never played (for a) few months, now you can see that he’s improved a lot.”
“You can see that Jordan came (in) not really (with) full understanding (of his teammates) but all matches, (especially) the last 5, 6, 7 matches, we block(ed) our opponent(s) quite well.”
“Basically, going forward we still need to improve, (but) today we scored 5 goals and I don’t think there’s any complaint about it.
To read the match report of KL City vs PSM Makassar on 24/8/2022 (AFC Cup), please click COMING SOON
To watch the highlights of KL City vs PSM Makassar on 24/8/2022 (AFC Cup), please click https://youtu.be/UqYV452zEQQ
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