THREE-CORNERED BATTLE FOR SUPREMACY IN THE SEMIFINALS

The trio – hosts Myanmar, rising force Thailand and defending champions Vietnam – are clearly in a league of their own and all three have rightfully made the semifinals.

One of them will surely be crowned the champion on Saturday, there’s just no doubt about it.

Then, there’s the fourth semifinalist in this year’s tournament – Malaysia.

Competing in this tournament for the first time, Malaysia did well to win two matches, against Indonesia and the Philippines, to make the semifinals. They too deserve to be in the last four.

But the reality for Malaysia is this; they are way behind the top three teams and it will be a massive struggle for them in the semifinals, especially since they will be taking on title-hungry Myanmar.

There’s also the home advantage factor to consider.

And it’s no surprise that Malaysian coach Mohd Shah Alias Norbit, a former international, said: “We can only hope to do our best. The Myanmar players are fast and skillful, and they are a good team and they have proven this when they defeated Thailand. And the Thais are awfully good,” he said.

For the record, Myanmar stunned Thailand 1-0 in their final preliminary match to claim the top spot and avoid an early meeting against Vietnam. On paper, Myanmar should easily defeat Malaysia and advance to the final. The Myanmar players have netted 11 goals while their defence have not conceded any goals.

The only concern for the Myanmar coach U Aye Kyu is that four of his top players, Moe Moe War, My Nilar Htwe, Aye Nandar Hlaing and Myint Myint Aye have all been booked once each.

A second yellow against Malaysia will result in an automatic suspension in the final where they will need the services of their best players.

Still, that should not stop the Myanmar players from taking the fight to Malaysia to claim their place in the final.

“The win over Thailand in the last group match is pivotal as it attest that the development programme that we have been doing are on the right track,” said Aye Kyu.

“But I don’t want to be over-confident and say that we will be in the finals for sure where we still have another 90 minutes to play for and anything can happen. As what had happened to Thailand, we hope that we will not have to suffer the same humiliation.”

For Vietnam, they will be hoping the decision to rest several of their key players will make the difference against Thailand as the attempt to win their second title in two years.

“The reality is that we could not field all of our best players in the match against Indonesia as the truth is that for the majority of the players in the region, they cannot play five straight competitive matches with just a day break in between,” added Vietnam assistant coach Ngo Le Bang.

“We respect Thailand as I believe that they are the strongest team at the moment – in spite of the loss to Myanmar. They beat us 5-0 in the last match we played and that was a bitter lesson which we hope that we can overcome tomorrow.”

Thailand on the other hand, the loss to hosts Myanmar will only make them more resolute against Vietnam in a tournament which they have largely been tipped to dominate.

“It was a defeat at a crucial time in the championship but I think that the girls have all learned a lesson or two from here,” added Thailand head coach Chana Yodprang.

“Even though we have beaten Vietnam before, I don’t think that we can count on past results to get us through. It will be another difficult 90 minutes for sure.”

PIC: Myanmar (in red) against Thailand (in dark blue) in their last group match two days earlier.