Thailand’s Coach: “It’s unbelievable we lost 4 goals”

Thai's Coach was afraid of losing Vietnam

The most expecting match of the U23 Asian qualifier happened exactly what Vietnamese fans awaited. With the goal of being forced to win to have a seat going to the Final round along with the advantage of playing right in the home pitch, the pupils of Coach Park Hang-seo showed the convincing performances when facing "great rival" - Thailand.

After a few minutes being under overpowered by the opponent, U23 Vietnam speeded up gaining the control. With 5 active midfielders and detonator Quang Hai who played freely, we quickly organized consecutive attacks towards Thailand's goal. With the very static, it’s understandable for us to score 4 goals thanked Duc Chinh, Hoang Duc, Thanh Chung, and Thanh Son. We absolutely have a high chance to score at least 2 more goals in Thailand's net if we’re more luckily.

Thailand Coach, Alexandre Gama said: "Firstly, I want to congratulate Vietnam, but I am totally surprised by this score. There’s just a few people believe Vietnam can beat Thailand 4 - 0. I take fully the responsibility on my side. The players have complied exactly the tactics set by Coach, but it sounds as if we didn’t have a lucky day. It’s out of everyone’s imagines that we did lose 4 goals. When playing in the situation of lacking players, we chose to perform defensively and wait for counter-attacks to take chances to score goals, but unfortunately, the chances didn't come but the failure did.”

Quang Hai skillfully controls the ball

Gama added: "In a football game, there always has won and lost. We’ve partly had controlled the game in the first half but the first goal of Vietnam had changed everything. Then we made consecutive mistakes leading to the lost. Quang Hai is a talented player and Thailand does have ones. Just because of this failure doesn’t mean Thailand’s football is less qualified. Quang Hai is a noticeable player and yet we have advocated narrowing his playing field, he still showed his best qualities.

Having this significant victory, U23 Vietnam has officially had a seat in the Final round of AFC U23 Championship 2020 holding early next year in Thailand. Moreover, this result also confirms the position as the talented team and clears away the controversy of the football backgrounds between Vietnamese and Thailand. And it also definitely throw away the "fear of Thailand" mentality that has been existed for a long time with Vietnamese players."