YANGON (13 Dec 2013) – Indonesian coach Rachmad Darmawan admitted that he was caught out by the Thai team’s strategy which led to his team’s big defeat yesterday. Rachmad said studied the Thai game in their first match against Timor Leste and expected them to play a similar style.
“I anticipated they would play the same way and use their flanks to attack us.” He said the Thais were very effective and broke down the Timor defence. Thailand went on to win that game 3-1.
“Today, they really surprised us with their different style of play. Instead of coming in from the flanks, they came right down the middle using two strikers, No 10 (Pokklaw Anan) and No. 7 (Thitiphan Puangjan).”
Pokklaw scored the opening goal just one minute and 18 seconds into the game. And from then on, Indonesia had to chase the game. “It was difficult after that, and we made some mistakes which allowed Thailand to score.”
But Rachmad refused to throw in the towel and said they had two more matches against Timor Leste (Dec 14) and hosts Myanmar (Dec 16).
“We had a good build-up coming into these Games and I believe the team can still improve.”
