China asserted its dominance over the Malaysian Tigress, showcasing their all-round superiority, before storming to a 5-0 victory in the Bihar Women’s Asian Champions Trophy Rajgir 2024 on Tuesday.
It was the Malaysians’ second consecutive defeat in two days of the tournament. They suffered a 0-4 loss to India in Monday’s opening match.
The Tigress, ranked World No 24, went into the match against China as underdogs and were to face an uphill task against the 2024 Paris Olympics silver medallist and currently rated World No 6.
Past records between the two teams, however, favoured the Chinese. The last time the Malaysians defeated China was 3-1 in a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw in regulation time in the bronze medal playoff at the 2013 Asian Champions Trophy in Kakamigahara, Japan.
China, who came within a whisker of upsetting the Netherlands in the Paris Olympics final, arrived in Bihar without bulk of players from that side nor chief coach Allyson Annan, who is Australian. Instead, the team is coached by Huang Yongsheng.
They have gone from No.14 in the world to No.6 within a short time – a year and a half- and are pursuing a higher standing. In their opening match on Monday, they rolled over an inexperienced Thailand 15-0 and made known their intention to continue their emergence.
Both Malaysia and China have yet to win an ACT title, but China have better standing in comparison, having secured runner-up twice and finished third three times.
The Malaysians could have suffered a bigger defeat had it not been for an inspiring attacking and defensive performance in the first and second quarters. Nasihin Nubli Ibrahim’s side held back the World No 6 for a good 11 minutes before falling to Yu Anhui’s field goal in the very next minute.
In a post-match interview, Nasihin expressed that he was happy with the overall performance of the team against China, a formidable opposition, despite the defeat.
“I feel the players gave their best performance in this match against China, who won a silver medal at the recent Olympics, especially in the first three quarters. It is unfortunate that they made several mistakes when under pressure in the fourth quarter that allowed China to score easy goals,” said Nasihin.
“The youngsters in the team have shown a lot of improvement in this second match. I feel the team has to play in many more quality international matches to gain experience and exposure. China had many penalty corners and were constantly attacking. Our defenders did well to stop them and I am proud of the way we played,” added Nasihin.
China’s relentless attacking game in the third and fourth quarters never gave the Tigress a chance and saw their defensive structure twist back and forth as though blown away by strong winds just like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge before collapsing in 1940.
In the final quarter, China added more goals. They had nine penalty corners and scored three, against Malaysia’s two. Tan Jinzhuang led the way with a brace from penalty corners in the 41st and 55th minutes, Wang Lihang scored in similar fashion (49th) and Hao Guoting nailed it with a field goal three minutes to the end of regulation time.
In other pool matches, Deepika scored a 57th minute field goal to pull India through for a 3-2 win against South Korea after both teams were tied at 2-2 with four minutes remaining to the final hooter. Thailand, ranked World No. 29, also held World No. 11 Japan to a 1-1 draw.
The Malaysian Tigers will next face the might of the South Koreans on Thursday (Nov 14), Japan on Saturday (Nov 16), and Thailand on Sunday (Oct 17).
“With tomorrow (Nov 13) being a rest day, we will use this moment to reflect on our performances against World No 9 India and China in preparation for the match against the Koreans. We played two back-two-back matches against the top teams in the world and this recovery session is important to the players,” added Nasihin.
“The coaches and players will be studying video analysis of our matches, and also of the Koreans. I want the players to show further improvements in their performance.”