MELAKA – Terengganu FC (TFC) coach Nafuzi Zain wants his team to maintain their winning momentum after defeating Melaka United FC 4-2 in the Super League at the Hang Jebat Stadium here last night.
He said that with two more away matches left to go, it would certainly not be an easy task but they must collect full points to enable the Turtles to qualify for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup.
“We will meet Kuala Lumpur this Tuesday and then Kedah in the last match, both are really difficult teams but we have no choice but to win and give our best performance.
“I also always believe in the abilities and strengths of my players, they always have high confidence. I want this team to remain consistent and what is important after this is that we will recover our fitness to be more prepared,” he told reporters after the match.
In the match, TFC’s Ivorian import player Tchetche Kipre scored a hat trick with his goals coming in the 3rd, 13th and 36th minutes before Faris Shah Rosli scored for Melaka in the 44th minute who were awarded a penalty kick before the end of the first half.
In the second half, the Mousedeer tried to close the gap and finally succeeded through Syahmi Shamsuddin’s shot in the 52nd minute but Faisal Halim continued to add to the home team’s misery by scoring another goal in the 70th minute and the 4-2 result remained until the final whistle.
Commenting on the match Nafuzi said his players had shown good effort and determination despite playing in difficult pitch conditions due to heavy rain.
“Alhamdulillah three important points and I laud the performance of the players as a whole, we started well but we need to also take note because in the second half we made a silly mistake that allowed them to score,” he said.
Meanwhile, Melaka’s interim head coach, Mohd Asri Ninggal said that even though they went down without import players and the team was mostly lined up with players under the age of 21, they showed their best performance and did not give up easily.
The result saw Terengganu in third place with 39 points while Melaka are in tenth position after only collecting 18 points. – Bernama
