Humiliation: Papua New Guinea is completely demolished by Malaysia

This Tuesday (20th June), the Kapuls played their second international friendly in this FIFA window after a 2-2 draw against Singapore last week; this time they faced Malaysia at Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium. The outcome was just unbelievable for the Papua New Guinean football fans: after a 1-0 result in the first half in favour of the local side, Papua New Guinea conceded nine goals in the second half – a harsh 10-0 result was the final say.

Safawi Rasid scored the first for the locals at stoppage time in the first half after a silly penalty conceded by Hekari United’s Solomon Rani. The Papua New Guinean goalkeeper Ronald Warisan made impressive stops through the first half, denying Malaysia to score until the deadlock was broken.

The second half was tremendous for Malaysia, atrocious for the Kapuls: the Brazilian-born striker Paulo Josué scored at the 52th minute to double the lead- then, the downhill for Papua New Guinea had started: Arif Aiman scored his first in the game four minutes later. At the 59th Muhammad Faisal scored the third, one minute later Arif Aiman scored his second and Paulo Josué scored his second at the 64th and his hattrick at the 70th.

Daniel Ting, after a corner, scored the 8th for Malaysia and Arif Aiman, in the dying minutes of the game, added another two to his tally: 10-0 – the biggest ever registered defeat for the Papua New Guinea men’s national team.

It was not expected from the Kapuls they could have a great game against a tough opposition such as Malaysia – who qualified for the 2024 Asian Cup edition. But, anyway, the scoreline represents much more than the gap between the two sides, but also the lack of preparation for the match and questionable team selection.

The first friendly against Singapore – 2-2 – gave hopes to the Kapuls‘ fans, although the performance was not there and goalkeeper Warisan made a number of stops to save Papua New Guinea from another defeat. Malaysia, a stronger team that Singapore – counting on several naturalised players posed a significant threat to the Kapuls, but the team coached by Harrison Kamake did not seem prepared to take this challenge and collapsed in the second half.