MELAKA: National team captain, goalkeeper Khairul Fahmi Che Mat, believes that Harimau Malaya’s only advantage against Kyrgyzstan tomorrow is the fact that they will be playing at home in front of Malaysian fans at the Hang Jebat Stadium.
For Khairul Fahmi, who is popularly known as ‘Apek’, the match itself has motivated his fellow teammates as they will be facing tough opponents who will feature in next year’s Asia Cup competition.
Khairul Fahmi stressed that despite the fact that Kyrgyzstan will be the favourites, they are focused and determined to get the better of their much fancied opponents by being motivated and committed especially after they managed to come from behind and beat Sri Lanka in Colombo last Friday.
"At the same time, I am also having to contend with strong, healthy competition to keep goal for the national side as I have teammates who are equally capable custodians who want to be between the posts.
"However, because it is healthy competition, I believe that it is good for the team as all of us want to perform as best we can in goal for Harimau Malaya,” Khairul Fahmi pointed out.
He added that all the players are also bent on cementing their positions in the first-eleven for the upcoming AFF Cup competition which takes place next month, so the match against Kyrgyzstan will be the best platform for them to realise such intentions.
Apart from Khairul Fahmi, the other two goalkeepers in the national squad are Perak’s Muhammad Hafizul Hakim Khairul Nizam Jothy and Johor Darul Ta’zim’s (JDT) Muhammad Haziq Nadzli.
Speaking further on the AFF Cup competition, Khairul Fahmi said that Malaysia will have a tough challenge ahead in Group A as they are drawn together with Southeast Asian neighbors Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and 2008 edition champions Vietnam.
He said that their path to the elimination stage of the competition will be anything but easy as all the other teams in the group will also want to advance past the group stage, and that they will have to watch out for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as these teams could wreck Malaysia’s hopes.