In the action that took place at the Taman Daya Hockey Stadium today, the National Youth Squad, were first surprised by South Africa’s opening goal through a field goal scored by Viwe Mbata in the 10th minute.

Shocked by the goal, the Young Tigers squad did not wait long to equalize two minutes later with a Che Nur Aqilrullah Che Mohd Khairulzi Anwar field goal and the score remained 1-1 until the end of the first half.

Continuing the third quarter, Muhamad Amin Rahim’s men finally managed to break the South African goal in the 39th minute through Mohammad Harris Iskandar Osman’s field goal, but the advantage did not last long when Cameron Le Forestier tied the score again.

When the match seemed to be dragged to a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner, Mughni Mohamad Kamal emerged as the hero of the Malaysian team when he scored the winning goal in the 56th minute through a field goal thus allowing the National Youth Squad to finish the SOJC 2023 campaign, in seventh place.

The result also saw Malaysia succeed in improving the achievements of the previous edition when it finished the SOJC 2022 campaign at the bottom.

The victory certainly gave some relief to the manager of the National Youth Squad, Muhamad Amin and also acknowledged that his players had given the best performance.

“Overall, all the players have given their best performance and we can see that the victory we are looking forward to for this tournament has been realized.

“I have to give praise and credit to the players, with their determination and desire to go down and score a win in this match. So I think we have learned many things for this campaign and this will be a supply for the players to prepare for the Youth World Cup later.

“What we will do after this, we have to identify all the weaknesses that we have done and try to correct the mistakes and improve every strength that has been done in this tournament,” he said after the match.

After this, the Young Tigers squad will focus on preparations for the 2023 Youth World Cup in Kuala Lumpur from 5 to 16 December next.

Defending champion India knocked out of Sultan of Johor Cup 2023 after a 3-6 loss to Germany in semifinal

Three-time champion India failed to defend their Sultan of Johor Cup junior hockey title, losing 3-6 to World No. 2 Germany in the semifinal here on Friday

Christian Franz (16th minute), Nikas Berendts (29th, 45th), Peer Hinrichs (43rd, 48th), and Sperling Florian (49th) found the back of the net for the Germans, who produced a dominating display.