Myanmar vs Malaysia

The 2022 AFF Championship Group B gets underway this midweek as Myanmar and Malaysia go head-to-head at the Thuwunna Stadium.

Myanmar’s bid to make it out of the AFF Championship group stages for the first time since reaching the competition’s semifinals in 2016 doesn’t look solid. They come into this tournament on the back of a dreadful nine-match winless streak in international football (D1, L8), including a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Thailand in their final warm-up fixture over a week ago. A lack of firepower up front has seen Myanmar fail to hit the scoreboard in six of their last seven outings (D1, L6), with the solitary exception of a 6-2 demolition by Singapore in June’s Asian Cup. On a more positive note, the ‘Chinthe’ had won back-to-back H2Hs against Malaysia ‘to nil’ before succumbing to a 3-0 loss in their latest encounter in 2018.

On the other hand, Malaysia may have suffered a heartbreaking penalty-shootout defeat to Tajikistan in September’s King Cup grand final, but they’ve bounced back impressively. The ‘Tigers of Malaya’ have won both international friendlies in December via 3+ goals ‘to nil,’ sinking the likes of Cambodia and the Maldives in the process. That should inspire their effort to avoid another group-stage elimination at the AFF Championship, as was the case in 2020, and get to the throne for the first time since their only previous success in the competition back in 2010. However, they have experienced mixed fortunes across their three AFF Championship meetings with Myanmar (W1, D1, L1), all of which saw one or both teams fail to find the net.