The 2023 MFL Challenge Cup is the third edition of

Malaysia Challenge Cup The Malaysia Challenge Cup ( Malay: ''Piala Cabaran Malaysia'') is a Malaysian football competition held under the auspices of the Malaysian Football League and the Football Association of Malaysia. The tournament was created for Malaysia Super ...

tournament organised by

Football Association of Malaysia The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM, ms, Persatuan Bola Sepak Malaysia) is the national governing body of football in Malaysia responsible for organising the Malaysia national football team within the country. The Football Association of ...

(FAM) and

Malaysian Football League The Malaysian Football League, also known simply as the MFL, was created during the course of the privatisation of the Malaysian football league system.https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/03/349279/tmj-thank-you-malaysian-football-and-goodby ...

(MFL). The tournament began on 18 September and ended on 3 December 2023. The qualified teams will compete on the knockout stage to compete in a

two-legged In sports (particularly association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum o ...

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

beginning with the quarterfinals followed by semi-finals and the final. Each tie is played on a home-and-away

basis. The

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaker, tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the ...

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary. A total of 8 teams competed in the knockout phase, which the eight losers of the

Malaysia Cup The Malaysia Cup ( ms, Piala Malaysia), formerly known as ''Malaya Cup'', is an annual association football, football tournament in Malaysia, held at the end of the calendar year. The cup was first held in 1921. Despite its prestige and popular ...

round of 16 will participate into the tournament. This was the first Challenge Cup to be held since the 2019 edition, after the previous 3 years saw the tournament not held due to various circumstances. This was also the first tournament under its new name, the MFL Challenge Cup. PDRM defeated Kuching City in the final, with 4–1 on aggregate, thus winning the competition for the first time in club history.

Teams

All 8 teams eliminated from the Malaysia Cup round of 16 will enter the tournament:

Format

Each tie in the

knockout phase A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

was played over

two legs In sports (particularly association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum ...

, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, then 30 minutes of

was played (the

was not applied). If the score was still level at the end of extra time, the winners were decided by a penalty shoot-out. In the final, which was played as a single match, if the score was level at the end of normal time, extra time was played, followed by a penalty shoot-out if the score was still level.

The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows: *In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings, and teams from the same association could be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals were held together before the quarter-finals were played, the identity of the quarter-final winners was not known at the time of the semi-final draw. A draw was also held to determine which semi-final winner would be designated as the "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes as it was played at a neutral venue).

Schedule

The schedule was as follows (all draws were held at the

headquarters in

Petaling Jaya ) , website = , image_skyline = , image_caption = ''From top, left to right:Skyline of Petaling Jaya, the 1 Utama Mall integrated with Bandar Utama Station, the Kota Darul Ehsan arch, the Petaling J ...

Selangor Selangor (; ), also known by its Arabic language, Arabic honorific Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity", is one of the 13 Malaysian states. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east ...

Knockout-stage

Bracket

----

Quarter-finals

The first legs were played on 18 and 19 September 2023, and the second legs were played on 4, 5 and 6 October 2023.

Matches

;First leg ;Second leg ''Kelantan United won 11–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ;First leg ;Second leg ''PDRM won 5–2 on aggregate.'' ---- ;First leg ;Second leg ''Kuching City won 4–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ;First leg ;Second leg ''Penang won 5–3 on aggregate.'' ----

Semi-finals

The first legs were played on 21 and 22 October 2023, and the second legs were played on 4 and 5 November 2023.

Matches

;First leg ;Second leg ''PDRM won 4–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ;First leg ;Second leg ''Kuching City won 3–1 on aggregate.'' ----

Final

The first leg was played on 29 November 2023, and the second leg was played on 3 December 2023.

Teams

Format

Schedule

Knockout-stage

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Matches

Semi-finals

Matches

Final

Matches

Winner

Statistics

Top goalscorers

See also

Notes

References

External links