NO EASY OUTING FOR THAILAND

Adisak Benjasiriwan, the team manager of the Thailand national Futsal team, said that apart from the inclusion of powerhouse Australia, the other competing teams have also made tremendous stride in the last several months.

“After winning the tournament for the last four times, I think that the championship this year will be the hardest as every team have been making positive improvements,” said Adisak after the team manager’s meeting this afternoon (pic).

“It will be marginally close and I don’t think that there will be runaway scores any more. Australia will make the competition stronger.”

Australia head coach Scott Gilligan said that it was important for the country to be part of Asia and where their participation for the current AFF Futsal Championship has added to their development as a Futsal-playing nation.

“Our target is to make the final where it will give us added incentive to be more competitive for the upcoming Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Futsal Championship in May,” added Gilligan.

QUOTES FROM OTHER COMPETING TEAMS

“The target is to maintain the achievement from last year which is to make the final. I believe that Australia is the black horse in the group as we know little about them. The AFF Futsal Championship is definitely harder this year although the league back home has made preparation better.” – Patilatu, Indonesian assistant team manager

“The first game will be pivotal for us especially when I have just re-taken over. There are only five players from the squad last year where although the three weeks preparation might not be much, it is the best that we can do under the circumstances.” – Rosanan Samak, Brunei head coach

“I took over the team just a month ago. At the start, I thought that the Myanmar team is not a Futsal squad even though they have the skill and technique. But they are eager and they work hard, so I believe that we have formed a good team for this championship.” – Takao Sakae, Myanmar head coach

“The team did well in the AFC qualifiers in Taiwan where they beat the likes of Chinese Taipei and Maldives. We had around two weeks of preparation although before that they trained for about three months. The players are all committed to Futsal and I believe that they will be strong for this championship.” – Esmaeil Sedigh, Philippines head coach

“The team is different from the one last year but I think that we can win our first game tomorrow (against Thailand). The national Futsal league has allowed us to form a completely new team and the results they scored have been inspiring. They chalked up 6-3 victories over Thai Son Nam and Police Newspaper before blasting C&T Club 31-0 before coming here.” – Long Nguyen Van, Vietnam head coach

“We did not have that much of an exposure since this year where we only had training for around two weeks every month for the last three months. But at the very least and in spite of the defeat in the last few friendly games here in Thailand, the team has taken it in their stride to go forward.” P. Balakrishnan, Malaysia head coach