The national football team’s entire focus is on the East Timor match, and to build confidence for that match, we need to win the Singapore match, said the team’s coach Ali Suzain. The national team’s next international match is a friendly against Singapore on June 5th. After that, the national team will play against East Timor in the AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers. That match will be held on June 10th in Australia.
Speaking about these two matches on the special program “Sports Pulse” brought by “PSM News”, Suzain said that the Singapore match will be used to prepare for the East Timor match. Suzain said he hopes that the fitness of all players will be good due to the recently concluded League Cup, including both new players who joined the national team and existing players. “Now I have to perform magic again, having to play two matches after just three practice sessions,” Suzain said.
Suzain said that even though they have to face the match after few training sessions, there is no worry, as the players joined the national team after very good training. Therefore, if the ongoing preparations for the match go well, it will be a relief for him. When playing the East Timor match in Darwin, Australia, it is a place with a climate similar to the Maldives, and even otherwise, when the Maldivian team prepares for matches now, the weather is not something they want to talk about, Suzain also noted.
“In any case, we need to be prepared to play in whatever environment we are in, so in that regard, we expect Darwin’s temperature to be similar to the Maldives,” Suzain said. Suzain further said that among the players he wanted to include in the team wanted to include in the team, TC’s Ahmed Maish Rashid (Maee) couldn’t be given a place due to injury, and that Maee was one of the players with the highest work rate in the concluded FAM League Cup. In addition, there are two players who are not participating in the team this time due to personal reasons.
Suzain’s comments indicated that he got the team he needed for these two matches from the FAM League Cup.”
