Perak football coach Wing Hoong hails fighting spirit in win

PERAK coach Chan Wing Hoong has credited his players’ fighting spirit as they completed a comeback to win the football gold for the third time.

The hosts beat Kedah 2-1 in a pulsating encounter at the Perak Stadium in Ipoh on Wednesday to clinch the mother of all gold medals in the Malaysia Games (Sukma).

The homesters were trailing from Kedah’s opener through Mohd Fadzrul Danel Mohd Nizam (64th minute), but turned on the heat through Muhammad Alif Safwan Mohd Sallahuddin’s equaliser (66th) before Muhammad Asyraaf Mat Pushni’s strike (70th) completed the win.

Wing Hoong, a former Perak player, could not hide his excitement after guiding the team to another victory.

“We are the king of comebacks ... my boys never gave up despite falling behind. It was a tough match and the credit goes to the players for fighting all the way for the win. They took their chances and to me, we are the deserving champions,” said Wing Hoong.

“The players kept their discipline and this is the sweetest win because we won the mother of all gold medals in front of our home fans.”

Perak also won the football title in 2014, 2016 to join the elite club of Sukma hattrick football winners – Pahang ( 1992,1994,1996) and Terengganu (2006, 2008, 2010).

Kedah’s loss extends their gold medal drought in Sukma football for 32 years. They last won it at the inaugural Sukma in 1986 in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, Kedah coach Victor Andrag said his boys wasted many chances.

“The players gave their best but we could not reach our target. We played through a gruelling round of fixtures in the group stage and we played both our quarter-final and semi-final matches over 120 minutes,” said the former international.

“We got off to a good start and scored in the second half but after that we wasted our chances to get more goals. We became unsettled when Perak got their equaliser and we made more mistakes.”