HANOI, Dec 28 ― Harimau Malaya captain Mohamad Faisal Abdul Halim was proud of his teammates and refused to blame the referee after Malaysia lost 0-3 to Vietnam in the top billing clash of Group B in the Asean Football Federation Cup (AFF) 2022 here, last night.

Mohamad Faisal said in the action at the My Dinh National Stadium, the players had tried hard to compete and achieve a positive result against the Golden Star Warriors when many doubted the ability of the national team formed for this edition of the tournament.

However, the Selangor FC winger said last night's defeat was the result of the team's own mistakes when they failed to capitalise on the advantage of playing against 10 players after Vietnamese striker Nguyen Van Toan was shown the red card in the 32nd minute.

"We can't talk about the referee (Ryuji Sato), he did his job and we did ours. The team has many young players and they need to learn, mistakes made can punish the whole team.

"But I, as the team captain, do not blame them, we need to give them encouragement, what is important is that Azam (Muhammad Azam Azmi Murad) has done a very good job and one mistake gave him an experience to learn from,” he said when met after the match.

Sato showed the red card to Muhammad Azam in the 62nd minute after the referee from Japan claimed that the young Terengganu FC player fouled Doan Van Hau off the field, and also awarded Vietnam a penalty kick following the incident.

Que Ngoc Hai made the most of the opportunity to double the lead after Nguyen Tien Linh had put the team in front in the first half before Vietnam wrapped up a stylish victory with Nguyen Hoang Duc's finish nearing full-time.

"This defeat is disappointing because we came to get three points and we had prepared to win. If you look from the beginning, we created opportunities, we could press them, just luck was not there.

"The first goal from a corner kick put us down but when they played with 10 players (after that) we were more enthusiastic. However, in the second half we made a mistake and were punished. That's football,” said Mohamad Faisal.

The defeat saw Malaysia fail to end their winless drought against Vietnam since 2014 ― losing seven times and drawing once, while last night's success saw Vietnam top Group B with six points from two games.

Malaysia who have played three games are in second place with six points, followed by Singapore, who have just played two games, are in third place (six points) while Myanmar and Laos are at the bottom after failing to collect any points.

Harimau Malaya coached by Kim Pan Gon will next meet Singapore in a 'do-or-die' match at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil on January 3, but Singapore will first host Vietnam at the Jalan Besar Stadium in the city-state this Friday. ― Bernama