AFF WOMEN’S: Competitive But With An Eye On SEA Games 2013

HO CHI MINH CITY (12 Sept 2012) – The AFF Women’s Championship 2012 which kicks off tomorrow at the Thong Nhat Stadium here in Ho Chi Minh City will no doubt be competitive but for most of the teams, they have their eyes on the SEA Games in 2013.

Defending champions Thailand said that with the number of players out injured and also with the suspension of the Thai League in the past year, it has forced them to look at talent elsewhere, specifically the Under-19 team.

“We are using a lot of new players from the U19 as most of the players from last year had either left the team, injured or were just not available,” said Pantipa Minokwan, the assistant team manager of Thailand.

“So we are using players from the U19 with the hope that they can be competitive and fight for a place in the final this year. It is okay if we don’t win the title but we are looking at the SEA Games next year as the ultimate aim for this squad.”

For Vietnam, who were dumped in the semi-finals last year, they have been hard at work in the past month which also included a trip to China as chief coach Chen Yun Fat look to land their first AFF crown since the inaugural meet in 2006.

“One month is certainly not enough,” said Yun Fat. “It is correct to say that the title will be down between Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar but we also have to respect the other teams taking part as we do not know what sort of improvements they have made in the last year.”

“I hope that our players can gain more experience in terms of tactical and physical so that we can improve to be better in future tournaments.”

With Laos the only absentee from the press conference as they will only arrive into Ho Chi Minh City later this afternoon, Myanmar showed that seriousness to compete by going to Japan for training and games prior to their arrival here.

“We had some training and matches in Japan as we are looking to mould this team for the SEA Games in 2013, so this tournament is very important for us,” added Dr Khin Saw Oo of Myanmar.

“We finished second the last time round so we hope that we can be more competitive even though we are using some new young players to be combined with the older players in the squad.”

 

QUOTES FROM THE REST OF THE COMPETING TEAMS

 

“I hope that we have done enough preparation to face the hosts in our opening match. We are of course looking forward to a good game and showed that we have done some improvements to our team.” – Suzana Foo, the team manager of Singapore

 

“We have been doing a lot of hard work since the last tournament. We want to show that we are serious about the game and this time round, we hope that we can have some success.” – Filbert Alquiros, the team manager of the Philippines

 

“We are trying our best. The last tournament we did not have good results against the bigger teams. So for us, we just want to show improvement and close the gap against the others.” – Jacob Joseph, the chief coach of Malaysia

 

AFF WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP 2012

GROUP A: Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines

GROUP B: Thailand, Laos, Malaysia