Oh, Issey! What a strike
Pahang’s new signing Nakajima breaks his duck in big win over KL
PETALING JAYA: Pahang’s new signing Issey Nakajima reckons that he can only get better after shrugging off his rustiness.
Nakajima finally broke his duck with the Elephants as they thrashed Kuala Lumpur 4-0 in their Super League clash at the Darul Makmur Stadium on Friday.
The former Canadian international scored Pahang’s third goal in the 52nd minute. Defenders Muslim Ahmad (seventh minute) and Safuwan Baharuddin (41st) and strik- er Austin Amutu (88th) scored the other goals.
The 34-year-old made his debut with Pahang in the 2-0 loss to Kedah last Tuesday after parting ways with Terengganu at the end of the 2017 season, making his return to the M-League after more than a half-year hiatus.
“It’s a bit of a relief, I mean it’s my second game in seven months. I’m 34 years old but I still feel fit. I still got it, but there’s a bit of that rustiness,” said Nakajima in the post-match press conference.
“The fans kept cheering me on and that kept me going, so do the coach and everyone at the club, they were excited by my arrival. So for that, it was very nice.”
The comfortable win over KL ended Pahang’s two-match winless run which dented their title race. Pahang now have 21 points with 11 matches remaining in the Super League.
Issey said that he has never won a match by a 4-0 margin but felt that he and the team could have performed better in the comfortable win over the City Boys.
“I don’t think anybody has been a part of a game where it’s a 4-0 (win). To be honest, we should have won by a bigger margin.
“But it’s an important win, and at the end of the day that is what’s important to us. So we have to be happy with it and try to click on the pitch.
“The team did not click the way we wanted to, when in training we had clicked and the coach said so too.
“We need to improve our match fitness in order to click as a team, that’s the difference between doing it in training and doing it together,” added the winger.