Jordan outclassed Malaysia in their long awaited return to the Asian Cup
Jordan took the lead just 12 minutes into the game after Yazan Al-Naimat played a clever backheel to Mahmoud Al-Mardi on the left wing, who cut inside defender Matt Davies and curled a beautiful shot into the top corner after no defender came out to try and close down the shot.
3 minutes later a ball was played over the midfield to Yazan Al-Naimat who took on Matt Davies but was fouled in the box. The referee looked to initially call the penalty but the linesman had his flag up. The decision went to VAR, who after a long hard look, had ruled Al-Naimat to be onside and the penalty was awarded. Midfielder Musa Al-Taamari proceeded to confidently place the penalty in the top corner past keeper Syihan Hazmi.
It continued to be one sided for the rest of the half as Jordan had a goal ruled out by VAR in the 27th minute but didn’t back down as just 5 minutes later Al-Naimat cut the ball back for Al-Mardi to make it 3-0 and punish Malaysia’s appalling defence. Al-Mardi would come off soon after looking to have picked up an injury in the process of scoring the 3rd goal. Malaysia looked to be lucky going in at half time just 3 goals down.
A somewhat dull second half followed as both teams never really got into full flow because of the quantity of substitutions that were introduced. A memorable day for Jordan was capped off by Montpellier winger Musa Al-Taamari as he was released by lobbed pass over the defence from Anas Al-Awadat and went on to lob the ball past keeper Syihan Hazmi to make it 4-0 in the 85th minute.
Malaysia face Bahrain next on January 20, before their closing group match against South Korea on January 25.
Jordan play South Korea on January 20 before closing out the group stages with a match against Bahrain on January 25.
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