Pan Gon ready to release new secret weapon this Friday

PETALING JAYA: The Harimau Malaya squad will highly likely unleash their new 'secret weapon' in the Tier 1 friendly match against Brunei tomorrow.

Its head coach, Kim Pan Gon said his coaching team had already provided the new information for their players on how to use this new weapon on the pitch at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

"I was pleased to see that my players had reacted very well to this new information (secret weapon).

"Perhaps, if they give a positive outcome tomorrow, from time to time we can use it (new weapon) so that the team have a lot of approaches to our game and make it difficult for our opponent to analyse our play," he told a pre-match press conference here today.

Although it is tiring for his charges to adapt to this new weapon, the South Korean coach will be proud and pleased to see the reaction of the players, and excited to see how it will pan out tomorrow.

As he realises the fans will surely crave for a win, Pan Gon also hopes to prove to them that his team will deliver a great performance, with passion, attitude and positive energy in each match that they play.

"We have to change and build literally the best thing for the fans and know what they want...I cannot give you every single game a win but we we will give you our heart, passion, dynamism, aggressive display or dominate the game and at least make them (fans) proud of this spirit; united and fight for Malaysian football," he said.

On the match against Brunei, the 53-year-old coach said he did not want to think about what kind of tactics or strategy that the opponent would use as he was only focusing on the way he wanted Harimau Malaya to perform tomorrow night.

Meanwhile, Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) midfielder, Mohamed Syamer Kutty Abba admitted that the team were raring to do their best in applying what they had learned from Pan Gon and translate it into a good performance against Brunei.

Brunei head coach, Rosanan Samak said they had made detailed planning for the match against Malaysia since the recent Ramadan after more than a year without any competition at the international level due to the tight measures taken by the Brunei authorities in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Rosnanan has promised to ensure that his charges would put up a good fight against the Malaysian team tomorrow.

Apart from Brunei, Malaysia are scheduled to meet Hong Kong in another warm-up encounter on June 1 before they take on Turkmenistan on June 8, followed by Bahrain (June 11) and Bangladesh (June 14) in the Group E 2023 Asian Cup qualifying round.

-- BERNAMA