BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (28 Sept 2012) – With less than a week to go to their first game in the qualifying round of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2012, Brunei captain Najib Tarif admitted that his team was predictable and they needed to vary their game.
Coming at the back of a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Indonesia with striker Irfan Bachdim nailing his first international hat-trick in Bandar Seri Begawan, the sultanate is under pressure to perform especially when the team was buoyed by the hallucinating heights of winning the Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy earlier this year.
“We are responsible for the loss to Indonesia,” said Najib. “All I can say is I am sorry for the fans that made it to the stadium on the night. We did not perform well in the game. It was not a good result and I am sorry to disappoint the fans,” said Najib.
“There was no balance in our movement during the game. We did not work together in the game. We lost focus, we did not create chances and our movement was too predictable. But we were not nervous of playing against Indonesia.”
However, Najib lamented that to reach a higher level of competitiveness, the team needed more playing time – something that he obviously realised that he cannot have.
“This team is new. It was only formed for few months. I only got called up to join the national team last month. We need more time together and we are running out of time. We were without players from DPMM FC and if we did, perhaps the result might have been different,” Najib explained.
“I am not taking anything away from the Indonesia team. They were the better team on that night. We (have) got to take responsibility of the defeat. Indonesia are technically better than us and they are always ahead of us in football. They are one of the strongest team in Southeast Asian.
“We hope that this defeat will teach us lessons. I hope that the players will see this as a reason to work hard and bounce back in the AFF Suzuki Cup qualifiers in Myanmar.”
The AFF Suzuki Cup will be played on 5-13 October in Yangon with Brunei having to face a tough opener against hosts Myanmar.
