With their victory last night, SABAH FC earned 12 points, making them the group H champions and advancing to the next round. In the match, Sabah Fc defeated Hougang United 4-1 at Jalan Besar Stadium in Singapore.
The match, which took place in the rain, was stopped for almost 20 minutes due to a flash warning immediately after an own goal by Naoki Kuriyama after he pushed in Daniel Ting’s cross in the 15th minute.
The match momentum was significantly disturbed when play resumed due to the sluggish pitch, but Datuk Ong Kim Swee’s team persevered and won a penalty kick after Miguel Cifuentes was hauled down.
Sang Badak led by two goals at the end of the first half thanks to Darren Lok’s easy completion of the penalty kick in the 45th minute, which was Sabah’s second goal and his sixth personal goal in the AFC Cup this season.
Sabah continued their attacking pace as soon as the second half continued and managed to get the third goal when Ramon Machado made an interesting volley after receiving a beautiful feed from Cifuentes for the third goal.
Sabah continued to launch attack after attack but were hit by the crossbar and the finisher was blunt despite having many opportunities in front of Hougang United’s goal.
Sabah added a fourth goal in the 78th minute through another own goal this time from Anders Aplin who deflected in Rizal Ghazali’s beautiful pass to give Sabah a stylish victory.
Hougang United got a consolation goal through Gabriel Quak in stoppage time to make it 4-1 and Sabah confirmed their fourth win from five games and 12th point which saw them qualify for the zonal semi-finals following in the footsteps of Kuala Lumpur City FC last season
