Skip to main content

Harimau ghairah

KETUA pasukan bola sepak Malaysia, Syafiq Rahim (kiri) bersalaman dengan ketua pasukan bola sepak Taiwan, Chen Yu Lin pada sidang akhbar perlawanan pusingan kelayakan Piala Dunia 2014 di Wisma FAM, Kuala Lumpur, semalam. - Foto Osman Adnan
KETUA pasukan bola sepak Malaysia, Syafiq Rahim (kiri) bersalaman dengan ketua pasukan bola sepak Taiwan, Chen Yu Lin pada sidang akhbar perlawanan pusingan kelayakan Piala Dunia 2014 di Wisma FAM, Kuala Lumpur, semalam. - Foto Osman Adnan
Kami sudah sedia kekang Taiwan: Safiq

"KAMI sudah bersedia dari segi mental dan fizikal!"
Itu keyakinan dilaungkan kapten skuad kebangsaan, Safiq Rahim menjelang pertemuan getir menentang Taiwan dalam pusingan pertama, kelayakan Piala Dunia 2014 di Stadium Nasional Bukit Jalil, malam ini.
“Selama tujuh bulan lalu kami sekadar beraksi dalam perlawanan persahabatan dan ini peluang terbaik membuktikan kemampuan kami selepas kali terakhir menjulang Piala AFF Suzuki Disember, tahun lalu,” kata tonggak skuad Harimau Malaya itu.

“Sasaran kami adalah untuk pergi sejauh mungkin dalam pusingan kelayakan ini dan mengekal rekod tanpa kalah sepanjang tahun ini. Memang kami tidak sabar untuk beraksi dalam perlawanan sebenar pertama selepas kejohanan peringkat Asia Tenggara tahun lalu.”

Ketua pasukan Taiwan, Chen Yu Lian pula mengharapkan perlawanan nanti menjadi yang terbaik untuk mereka selepas gigih berlatih sekian lama.

“Misi kami ke Kuala Lumpur adalah untuk membawa pulang tiga mata sebelum membuat penentuan di laman sendiri Ahad ini,” kata bek kiri pasukan.
Safiq juga berharap beberapa pemain skuad Olimpik yang turut mengisi skuad senior untuk pusingan kelayakan ini dapat mengulangi persembahan cemerlang seperti ketika menewaskan Lubnan 23 Jun lalu.

“Saya dan rakan sepasukan berjanji akan memberikan persembahan terbaik untuk terus meletak negara di landasan kemenangan,” kata Safiq.

“Semangat kami cukup tinggi terutama apabila beraksi di depan penyokong sendiri.

“Kemenangan esok (malam ini) pasti memberi nafas baru baru buat bola sepak negara, terutama selepas skuad Olimpik turut cemerlang melakar kejayaan ke peringkat kelayakan terakhir.

“Kami akan cuba mencari bekal selesa sebelum bertandang ke Taiwan untuk perlawanan kedua Ahad ini.”


BERITA HARIAN

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
4 comments
Read more