KUALA NERUS, Sept 20 (Bernama) -- The high fighting spirit shown by the players was the main factor behind Terengganu FC’s (TFC) emphatic victory over Melaka FC in their Super League clash at Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium (SSMZA) last night.
The Turtles head coach Badrul Afzan Razali said credit should go to his players who managed to collect three valuable points, thus lifting TFC from third to second place in the Super League standings.
He said although his team started rather slowly, the players managed to improve their style of play and launched continuous attacks which resulted in four goals in the first half.
“Congratulations to all the players tonight...credit must go to them. The high fighting spirit at home and the attitude of not underestimating the opponent’s threat were among the key factors in TFC’s big win tonight.
“Of course, main striker Yan Mabella put on a good performance after recovering from an injury last week. I hope this momentum can be maintained for the next match against Kuala Lumpur City FC (KL City FC),” he said after the post-match press conference.
Meanwhile, Melaka FC head coach Datuk K. Devan said the weakness in defence and the underperformance of foreign players contributed to last night’s defeat.
In addition, the home side’s penalty goal at the end of the first half had an impact on the spirit and motivation of the players to fight back after trailing 0-4.
“Tonight we could see a huge gap in the quality of foreign players between the two teams. We may not be able to match the quality of TFC’s imports with the budget we have.
“We also played with 10 men for 65 minutes after Che Rashid Che Halim was shown a red card. We will take this as a lesson to improve our game in the next match,” he said.
-- BERNAMA
