The Malaysia Experiment - Our Noisy Neighbors

"本是同根生相煎何太急"
"We were originally grown from the same root;
Why should we hound each other to death with such impatience?" - Cao Zhi

Singapore is like the annoying little brother that you have, who thinks he can beat you in anything and everything. Well, I guess we'll just have to prove him wrong, again.

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I hold the utmost respect for our noisy neighbor, so I field my strongest eleven; Luqman Hussain coming back in on the left flank as well as Saddam El-Hafedz Shahri in goal. Iskandar Baseri is clearly better than Matthew Davies so I kept him in. Muhaimin Jamaludin performed really badly the last match against Macau but I'm keeping the faith; the commentator reminding me that he scored 13 goals in 14 games helped a lot. :p

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Since we were playing away from home, I was in no hurry to be on the attack. Both sides took time to grow into the game but our breakthrough came in the 36th minute. Hussain dribbled the ball down the flank and then sent a cross in. Jamaludin wasn't quick enough to meet it so the ball hit the post. Izwan Mahbud (GK) had already committed and dived so Jalaludin just had an empty net to put the ball in.

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Right after the restart, we were awarded a freekick. The ball ended up in the opposite flank this time, at the feet of Lee Jinxiang. He whipped in a cross and Jamaludin fought for the header. He scored and we doubled our lead. I was clenching my fist in celebrations and approval.

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We headed into halftime two goals up. Lebanon was leading Iraq in the other Group 4 match. I guess it's just not Iraq's year. If the results stand, they'll be stranded in lowly fourth, second bottom on the group, just above whipping boys Macau.

The second half was pretty uneventful, with just three of our own players (Hussain, Baseri and Armuhum Gurusamy Govandar) picking up yellow cards. It might come back to bite us but I'll save that worry for another day. Let's just celebrate that we're top of the table close to the halfway mark of the FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign! :)

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The Malaysia Experiment - WCQ Group 4 | Top of the Table Clash!

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