Azkals upset Malaysia, 1-0

The Philippines’ hope of barging into the semifinals is on track. #SEAGames #Azkals

Stephan Schrock delivers a floater that broke the hearts of the Malaysians. (Yummie Dingding)

The Philippines inched closer to a glorious finish in front of its home crowd following a victorious performance over Malaysia in the men’s football competition of the 30th Southeast Asian Games late Friday at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

The Azkals’ 1-0 win over the Malaysians before a roaring crowd of 6,500 was nothing short of spectacular.

Skipper Stephan Schrock delivered a floater from the right corner that curled perfectly to find the back of the net in the 71st minute and shock the reigning silver medalists.

Actually, Amani Aguinaldo appeared to have forced the ball in, but the goal was still credited to Schrock for his brilliance and wizardry.

With the win, the Philippines’ hope of barging into the semifinals is on track as it moved to third place with four points behind leaders Myanmar and Cambodia to gain a handsome chance of landing in the medal podium.

The victory was so painful to the Malaysians that their head coach, Ong Kim Swee, stressed that “we should be ashamed of the result.”

“It is a very good day for football. The Philippines finally won and it is a big day for Philippine football,” said Schrock, the Filipino-German striker who took the leadership role from the charismatic Phil Younghusband following his retirement.

“I feel very happy that we can advance to the semifinals. I am very proud of the result.”

The victory shook the decades-old venue to its very foundation.

It reminds fans of the miracle that happened some 28 years ago when a gutsy group of Filipino booters led by Norman Fegidero pulled the rug from under powerhouse Malaysians, 1-0, at the same venue during the 1991 SEA Games.

Unfortunately, the home squad failed to go all the way to the medal podium and settled for fourth place, leaving Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore to claim the gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Since then, Malaysia improved its football program and started to dominate Southeast Asia.

“My players accepted new ideas, and they really deserve to win because we did not deserve to lose against Myanmar before,” Azkals head coach Goran Milejovic said.

“We did scout them (Malaysia), we saw that they are a quality team. But my players are giving their 100 percent each and every match they play, we played very offensive.”

The Serbian mentor also praised his young team as how open they were in taking new ideas to improve their performance, which was very apparent as how they dominated the ball possession and shot attempts in the entire game.

“We changed our formation, and it was very dangerous, very offensive. But the players accepted that, accepted all ideas preparing for the game.”

Aguinaldo, the brave defense specialist who put clamps on the Malaysians strikers, stressed that the achievement was a big boost to the nation, but noted that there’s still tons of work to be done.

“We’re still a long way from where we want to be,” said Aguinaldo, who was very effective in beefing up the Young Azkals’ defense in the backline.

“Even if there’s a need to celebrate since this is our first win over the Malaysians since 1991, we still have to be humble and keep our composure in the next games. The battle is still far from over.”

Playing three tough matches in the past five days is undeniably a bit of a stretch.

Now, with their next match against Timor-Leste not starting until Wednesday, the Young Azkals have ample time to rest their swelling bodies and put their minds back on hunt mode.

“We need to recover well and get our legs ready. The rest will be a big help,” Schrock said. “We brought ourselves in a situation where we can advance, we are not going to get carried away. It was a lot of work. We were playing high-speed football.”