Stewart’s game plan backfired as Oman humiliated Maldives with a 5-0 win

Coach Darren Stewart’s game plan to stop Oman backfired completely as the middle east side beat Maldives comfortably by 5-0 in the AFC Cup qualifying game played in Oman tonight.

Oman opened the scoring in the 4th minute but Maldives was lucky to finish the half without conceding after a hopeless display.

Oman added four more in the second half with majority of the goals came as a result of poor defending and lack of proper game plan.

Stewart insisted before the game that there is nothing Maldives to fear of Oman but as the game progressed most Maldivian’s hope the game ends as soon as possible to save the players from a humiliation.

In the other game of the group Palestine beat Bhutan by 2-0 strengthen their position at the top of the group.

2 Responses

  1. Unable to string a couple of passes, kicking the ball as if anywhere will do, massive defensive blunders when under pressure, is this the maldives football of 2017? It was more like we were watching the maldives of 1997 when the team was taken to the cleaners by Iran in 17- 0 humiliation.

    There was no teamwork, cohesion.

    Imprecise passing, large pockets of space, ill- timed runs, tactical naivety, moves broken down before it really started, the match bore the hallmark of team in great decline. The whole team was in disarray from the first minute to the last.

    Coach’ s team selection is highly questionable, this a total collapse, this is not maldives real strength! He has to answer for this sham!

  2. I am not a tactical master in football. What I noticed was that coach is speaking way too much. Nothing productive or promising was seen. Whole midfield was a complete joke, 5 defenders at the back seemed clueless. Yet coach brought in a defender in place of a midfielder at a crucial moment. Then there was another blunder, only creative player in the middle, Umair was replaced with highly ineffective Imran Nasheed (he is no where close to tactical and technical level of Baka and Ibrey). I can’t believe our players could not complete a string of two three passes and shooting and clearing ball as if it comes. In my opinion Maldives could have avoided this huge farce in getting heavily defeated if it was a more conventional system such 4-4-2. Because we don’t have wingers with tactical decipline for marauding up and down. But with conventional 4-4-2 would give balance and would suit much given the talent of current crop of players. My selection is;
    Samooh Umair
    Amdhaan Irufan Fasir
    Faisal Shafiu Arif Ashfaq
    Rilwan Ashad

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