YANGON (6 Dec 2013) – Men’s football at the 27th SEA Games might yet be the most competitive ever in the history of the meet since 1959 considering that almost all competing teams have taken the time to prepare a squad able to win what has often been described as the mother of all gold medals at the biennial championship.
With Myanmar having put the target of winning the men’s football gold medal above the overall championship, the onus is on the rest of the competing teams to show that they are just not here to make up the numbers. The hosts have been preparing hard for this meet since way back even before the SEA Games in Indonesia in 2011.
Myanmar coach Park Sung-hwa said at the pre-match press conference for Group B this afternoon that it is important not to underestimate any teams even though they will be playing at home.
“We have to give all teams the proper respect as they have all prepared well for this championship,” said Sung-hwa. “We are taking it one game at a time where at this point, we are just looking at the first game against Cambodia.”
For Cambodia coach Lee Tae-hoon, the unavailability of several players due to personal reasons must have wrecked his plans of a grand start to their campaign. Add this to the year that they have put in to rope in their foreign-bred players, the recent BIDC Cup underlined just how serious they were to win their first ever medal in the event.
“It is unfortunate that some of the players could not make this trip due to personal reasons,” added Tae-hoon. “But this is no excuse. We will just have to prepare as well as we can even though we will be playing against the hosts.”
In the meantime, Thailand are looking at a positive start to their campaign when they take on Timor Leste in the first game of the afternoon tomorrow as Thai assistant coach Klairoong Trijaksang rubbished all claims that they are not sending their best team to Yangon.
He said that the current Thai squad might not have had stints abroad compared to some of the other teams but they have spent enough time together to ensure that they can play as a combined lethal unit.
“We are looking at a grand start, so we have our best team here,” said Klairoong. “We have prepared this team for 11 months and we even beat China with this team, so it goes to show as to their quality.”
Emerson Alcantara, the coach for Timor Leste, said that they will be hoping on the good outing they had last year at the AFF Suzuki Cup qualifiers to carry the team’s challenge this time round. And it will all begin with the tie against Thailand.
“We had a good outing here, so I’m hopeful that we can do better with a handful of foreign reinforcements which we have included this time round,” added the Brazilian. “It will be tough against Thailand but we aim to win, for sure.”
With the four teams battling it out tomorrow, the advantage will be on Indonesia as it will allowed them the chance to assess the strength of their opponents.
“It will give us some measure of advantage but what I’m more concerned about is the psyche of the players,” added Rahmad Darmawan, the coach of Indonesia. “I don’t want them keep thinking of the MNC Cup victory. Now it is a different ball game and they should treat as such.”
