AFF UNDER-19: A COMPETITION BETWEEN OLD BOYS AGAINST YOUNG MEN

YANGON (7 Sept 2011) – With Brunei eager to make an impression in their first competitive tournament since FIFA lifted their suspension earlier this year, the chief coach of the Philippines – Maor Rozen – could not have described this year’s AFF Under-19 Championship better than terming it as ‘a competition between old boys against young men.’

Ten teams will do battle starting from tomorrow to decide the best U19 team in the ASEAN region and in spite of the rain and traffic in this bustling city of 8 million, the players and coaches are all eager to begin their campaign.

At the press conference immediately after the team managers’ meeting (pix) this afternoon, Maor admitted that it is tough to compare his team against the more experienced team in Group A although they are looking at the team in the long term.

“This championship is tournament between old boys and young men. We are young team and it is important that we get experience. We have an average age of around 17-years-old,” said Maor, who will be playing in Group A of the championship against

“Obviously, we can’t be compared to teams which have been playing together for months or years. We played only two international matches against local Vietnam clubs when we were in Ho Chi Minh City last week. But we are thinking long term.”

In the meantime, Brunei are also treading along the same line after returning from a FIFA-imposed suspension in the middle of this year.

“We are thankful to the AFF and also to FIFA who have allowed us to come back into the football family and certainly, we will do our very best to show what we can do,” said Zainuddin Kassim, the chief coach of Brunei.

“We are a young team and we did not have such a long time to prepare for this championship as we decided to take part at only a late stage. But it is important for us to participate as most of these players will form the future Under-23 team for Brunei.”

Myanmar on the other hand realised the expectation that lies ahead where as hosts, they are expected to go all the way in a country which is just crazy about football.

“We have been training for several months but in the last one month, we have made some changes to the team where we have obtained some players from the MNL (Mynamar National League),” explained Gerd Horst, the chief coach of Myanmar.

“As hosts, we expect to reach the semi-finals but I cannot promise that we can win the tournament. The only thing that I can promise is that we will perform well.”

ADDITIONAL QUOTES

“This team has been together for the past two months. Most of the players come from high school competitions. We had no chance to play matches or invite teams to come to Phnom Penh to play. We need this experience to play international football. We are in a tough group for sure.” – Prak Sokmony, the chief coach of Cambodia

“All the players play in the second division of the Malaysian league. We get the players from the Sports School which we have. I believe that Thailand and Singapore are the most experienced team in our group and it will be challenging. But we are here not to make up the numbers, where our target is the semi-finals.” – Ismail Ibrahim, the chief coach of Malaysia

“This tournament is a good platform to prepare us for the AFC qualifiers next month where we can assess how far this set of players can go. The boys played in a local league in Singapore which is for the Under-23 and so far they, have played around 20 matches. For us, we are just taking it one game at a time and not look beyond that.” – Mohamad Bakar Nawas, the chief coach of Singapore

“Our team started training for the past two weeks. It is hard to get them together as some of them are playing in the Thai Premier League and also the Thai First Division. But most of them came from the Thai national U16 team previously, so they are quite used to each other. Before coming here, we managed to play four friendly matches.” – Chuchar Peutiang, the Thai team secretary

“We brought 22 of our best players and hopefully we can get into the semi-finals of this championship. After winning the Arafura Games in Australia earlier this year, we managed to keep 80% of the players together and just like Malaysia, our target is the semi-finals. We have been in intensive training for the past one and half month.” – Zulkifli Alfat, the chief coach of Indonesia

“It is always tough to beat the host team, but we will try our best. We respect Myanmar but for us, we are here to gauge our players and see how they perform under competitive environment. We have four players playing in the V-League and we also have one Russian-born player, who is the team’s goalkeeper.” – Truong Hai Tung, the team manager of Vietnam

“Around 40% of the players are from the provincial teams while the rest are from the Lao League. We have no international experience and this is something which we need to work on in the long-term. We all dream to be champions of course but the road there is long and hard. We will put up our best and show how much progress Cambodian football has made.” – Xeunvisay Sivisay, the chief coach of Laos

GROUPINGS

Group A: Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia

Group B: Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei

AFF UNDER-19 CHAMPIONSHIP FIXTURES

Date	Group	Match No.	Match	Time	Venue
8-Sep-11	B B	1 2	Laos                vs            Indonesia Brunei DS           vs             Vietnam	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
9-Sep-11	A A	3 4	Philippines         vs           Singapore Cambodia           vs             Malaysia	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
10-Sep-11	B B	5 6	Vietnam             vs            Myanmar Brunei DS           vs                  Laos	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
11-Sep-11	A A	7 8	Malaysia            vs             Thailand Cambodia           vs           Philippines	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
12-Sep-11	B B	9 10	Myanmar           vs           Brunei DS Indonesia            vs             Vietnam	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
13-Sep-11	A A	11 12	Thailand            vs           Cambodia Singapore           vs             Malaysia	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
14-Sep-11	B B	13 14	Brunei DS           vs            Indonesia Laos                vs            Myanmar	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
15-Sep-11	A A	15 16	Cambodia           vs           Singapore Philippines         vs             Thailand	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
16-Sep-11	B B	17 18	Vietnam             vs                  Laos Indonesia            vs            Myanmar	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
17-Sep-11	A A	19 20	Malaysia            vs           Philippines Singapore           vs             Thailand	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
18-Sep-11	Rest Day
19-Sep-11	SF1 SF2	21 22	Winner A           vs        Runner-up B Winner B           vs        Runner-up A	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre
20-Sep-11	Rest Day
21-Sep-11	3rd/4th Final	23 24	Loser SF1            vs            Loser SF2 Winner SF1          vs        Winner SF 2	1530 1810	Youth Training Centre