KUALA LUMPUR: National coach Juan Torres Garrido admitted that his team failed to perform to his expectations in the Under-23 Asian Cup in Doha.
Malaysia lost 2-1 to Kuwait at the Al Janoub Stadium yesterday, and this means that the team have lost all their Group D matches, having gone down to Uzbekistan and Vietnam with an identical score of 2-0 last week.
Malaysia failed to get a single point from three matches, conceded six goals and scored only one goal.
Kuwait took a 2-0 lead with goals from Salman Al Awadhi (penalty, 14th minute) and Talal Al Qaisi (60th) while Haqimi Azim Rosli scored a consolation for Malaysia (63rd).
Malaysia were reduced to 10 men after goalkeeper Sikh Izhan Nazrel Sikh Azman was sent off for bringing down Salman Mohammed outside the box.
Later defender Umar Hakeem Suhar Redzuan gave away a penalty for fouling Talal.
Spaniard Garrido said in the post-match press conference: "We cannot be positive about this. Of course, our expectations were different and it's difficult to define because when it comes to performance, my analysis differs from the results and what happens in the game.
"But altogether, it cannot be considered good, and we need to apologise to the fans because we didn't reach the level we wanted to.
"At moments we had the chance to be more aggressive, our players were already exhausted from three games in seven days; we lacked the energy obviously.
"At halftime, we tried to plan accordingly. The players performed excellently in terms of what we asked them to do in the second half, but we lacked a bit of energy in the final part to finish the work."
Garrido added that the team created chances but made costly mistakes.
