Match Report: Pahang Rangers 9-2 ATM
Pahang made it comfortably through to the semi-finals after a big win over ATM. They will play JDT in the last four.
Pahang Rangers made light work of their play-off tie with ATM, winning 9-2 in Kuantan to book a semi-final meeting with JDT, a result that never looked in doubt from the moment they led 5-0 at half-time. It was as one-sided a knockout tie as the MPFL 2026 play-offs have produced, and a fitting way for Pahang to close out a regular season built substantially on the same attacking depth that was on display throughout.
The damage was done early and spread across the team sheet rather than concentrated in a single performance. Muhammad Haziq, Muhammad Sirhan and Muhamad Razin all got on the scoresheet, alongside a Muhammad Syarifuddin brace, to establish the five-goal cushion Pahang carried into the second half, a lead that made the outcome of the tie all but academic before it had even reached the interval. ATM, already well beaten on the head-to-head record against Pahang this season, had no answer to the pace or variety of the movement in front of them.
The second half followed much the same pattern, Felipe De Souza and Rodrigo Da Silva, the strike partnership that has carried Pahang's season from start to finish, both getting on the scoresheet alongside further goals from Akmarulnizam and Muhammad Syazwan to take the final tally to nine. ATM did at least avoid a repeat of their heaviest defeats of the season, Muhamad Imran and Shamsuri Saleh both finding the net in reply, but two goals were never going to trouble a Pahang side playing with the freedom of a team that had already put the tie beyond doubt.
For ATM, the defeat brings a mixed campaign to an end at the first hurdle of the play-offs, undone by the same struggles against the division's strongest sides that shaped much of their regular season. For Pahang, the manner of the win, a third victory over ATM this season and by some distance their most emphatic, sends them into a semi-final against JDT with real momentum, the strike partnership of Felipe De Souza and Rodrigo Da Silva firing exactly when their side needed it most.
