Although there is no goal at that time, the fate of the national team changed when they were forced to play with 10 men for remaining 58 minutes with Saudi Arabia to take advantage of relentless attacks. Head coach Datuk Ong Kim Swee admitted defeat caused a red card to Zubir to give an advantage to Saudi Arabia dominated the match.
"Before the match, Malaysia have equal opportunities to win despite Saudi Arabia's players have the edge physically," he told reporters after his team lost 3-0.
He described the action of the referee Thailand, Pu Udom, red card to Muhammad Zubir as an excessively harsh sentence, claiming that the players just do a little twist on Saudi players.
"In my personal opinion, with Muhamad Zubir such incidents should not be a red card," he said.
Harimau Muda A squad had to forego the desire to advance to the second round when they finished third in the group after losing 3-0 respectively to South Korea and Saudi Arabia and a 4-0 win over Laos.
Only the top two teams in each of the eight groups advance to the second round.
Commenting on future of th eteam, Kim Swee said he was concerned with the shortage of players for the challenge lay in the SEA Games Singapore 2015 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur in 2017 later.
"I hope to find new talent would be greatly enhanced as we may experience a shortage of junior players in the future," he said.