YANGON (14 Sept 2011) – The Myanmar national women’s team have set the target of a place in the final of the AFF Women’s Championship 2011 which will be played out in Vientiane, Laos next month.
Aye Aye Maw (pix), the team manager of the team said this week that after going through four months of training, they feel confident enough of emerging as the best two teams in the meet this year.
“Sure Thailand and Vietnam will pose the biggest threat in the tournament but we have been training very intensively for the last several months and we feel confident enough. Furthermore, we have a new coach (Yoshinori Kumada from Japan) and he should give us a new dimension to our game,” said Aye Aye.
“Other than training in the four months, we have also played some ten friendly matches against both men and women’s team. On the average, we won some 80% of our games which is good.
“While we may not have been able to play international friendlies, I think that we are at a good level which should make us competitive in Laos.”
Prior to centralised training, the panel of selectors held trials in Yangon, Bago, Mon, Mandalay, Kayar, Kayin and also Shan before shortlisting the 30 trainees.
Assisting Kumara is former Myanmar women international Thet Thet Win with the captain of the team being San San Maw.
San San and Myni La Thwe are the oldest players in the squad at 30 and 29-years-old respectively while the youngest player is 16-year-old Khin Than Win.
“Other than preparing for the tournament proper, we will also start our Myanmar National Women’s Championship with 14 teams taking part (on 27 Sept 2011),” added Aye Aye.
“So we are looking at a bright future for women’s football in Myanmar.”
AFF WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP 2011 GROUPINGS
Group A: Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos
Group B: Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines
