LAOS LOOKING FOR EXPERIENCE; THAILAND USING U21

As Phothone Thanavady, the team manager for Laos said after the team manager’s meeting this morning, their participation in the AFF Futsal League 2008 is to gauge their ability and where they stand in the Asean region.

“The players are not at all nervous as they have played Futsal at the international level before (at the last SEA Games in Thailand) so we are looking at getting more experience from this tournament and look at how we can improve from here,” said Phothone.

“We had about four weeks of preparation with these Under-23 boys and while we know it is not enough, still we need to get the experience to be better.”

Defending champions Thailand, who have won the tournament for the last several years, have opted to use their national U21 team for this year’s meet considering that the senior side are preparing for the Futsal World Cup later this year.

Team manager Kraiserm Tohtubtiang pointed out that while their team maybe young, they have several players who have played with the senior national team before.

“It is an opportunity for these young lads. They have been playing together since the start of this year and they have gained some good results especially when they sparred against teams (South Korea, Malaysia and Australia) preparing for the recent AFC Asian Cup,” added Kraiserm.

“I think that Indonesia have made considerable progress while as you would have already known, Vietnam will be a handful as they have hired our former national coach (Pattaya Piemkum) to guide them.”

ADDITIONAL QUOTES

“The majority of the players are from the last SEA Games. And although we have not had the chance to play any international friendlies, I believe that the team should make some progress from last year. What we are looking at is to reduce the number of goals we conceded from last year. We hope that there will not be a repeat of losing to Thailand 14-0.” – Gil Talavera, team manager for Philippines

“I am more confident this time round as we are using basically the same players from the last year or so. We had two weeks of preparation before coming here and the players should peak nicely at this time especially when it is considered that most of them are getting regular matches from the Indonesian Futsal League. Definitely, we will put up a better show against the hosts Thailand.” – Justinus Lhaksana, head coach for Indonesia