WE NEED THE EXPERIENCE: SIVISAY

Laos, who are taking in this championship slated for Sept 6-15 for the first time ever, have been placed in a tough Group B against Singapore, Thailand and hosts Myanmar.

“The fact remains that currently Thailand are 33rd in Asia, Myanmar 44th while Singapore are 100th – we are not even in the rankings,” said Xeunsavanh Sivisay, whose team will open their campaign against Thailand later today at the Youth Training Centre.

“But for us, it is important that we take part in this championship because if we do not send the team here, we will never know where we stand – we need to be here.

“From here, we will go back and analyse the performance and see how we can improve for the next championship with the goal of doing well at the SEA Games in 2009 as the ultimate target.”

Sivisay said that the other reason why Laos are pursuing to do better in women football generally was because there are only a handful of teams which can be considered as the top teams in the region.

He explained that currently, there are only four teams who are dominating the region and they are Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Indonesia.

“There’s real potential for the women’s game then there are for the men’s game for a small country like Laos to make positive progress and advance,” added Sivisay.

For the current championship, Sivisay’s only aim is to make sure that his team do not suffer the humiliation of the being thrashed by big goal margins in any of their matches.

“Win, lose or draw is not as important as looking at the performance and also to avoid being totally overwhelmed. We have to realise that we are playing against teams which have been playing together for years,” he added.

“We come here for the experience. We are not looking at the results other than to help us grow and set specific targets for the future.”

PIC: XEUNSAVANH SIVISAY, the head coach for Laos