Petaling Jaya City FC pulled off a stunning win in Johor Bahru to end the unbeaten streak of Super League champions Johor Darul Ta’zim.
JDT have already completed an entire Super League season without a single defeat on the road. The final two matches were scheduled to be played at their fortress that is Tan Sri Dato Haji Hassan Yunos Stadium and all indications are they will match 2016’s season when they went a whole league campaign without a single loss.
But it wasn’t to be as Washington Brandao’s goal in the second half gave PJ City a win on Tuesday night and put ‘one’ in the loss column for JDT. It would a defeat that rakes in the heart of JDT but it does not take away the fact that they are still the most consistent team in the league and have clinched their sixth straight MSL title.
To rub salt into the wounds, the league defeat at home is also the first one suffered by the club since HRH Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim rebranded and revamped the team back in 2013. Almost seven whole season of staying unbeaten at home is an incredible feat even in the current context.
“Of course (disappointed). We didn’t want to lose but this is football. Anything can happen in football and today (Tuesday) it happened to us, so I’m very upset. But we are already champions so it’s not a big worry. We are worried about how we played and I’m not happy with how we played in this game.
“Mauricio is of course one of the important players for us but we have a lot of players who can do very team. Today we didn’t do a good job as a team and we lose. We are unlucky because we can’t finish the season unbeaten but I’m very proud of these players that I have because we won the league with four matches to spare.
“I’ve said before that against teams like these it’s tough to play because they come here to sit back and don’t give space,” said Luciano Figueroa in the post-match press conference.
Figueroa was without the services of centre back Mauricio dos Santos and used Fadhli Shas in the former’s absence. While further upfield saw the return of Hariss Harun and Safawi Rasid in to the side for a team that stll felt the effect of the influenza virus that struck them recently.
A mega celebrations is planned on Friday after their final league match of the season, at home against Terengganu FC. A match which will allow Figueroa and co to right the wrongs from this PJ City defeat and kick-start another new long unbeaten home run.
Follow Goal Malaysia on Instagram
Be the first to comment