Coach talk

David Booth after his team's 1-0 success v Nepal Police

Englishman David Booth had this to say after his Phnom Penh Crown team had successfully qualified for the AFC President's Cup final round with a 1-0 win over Nepal Police Club at the Olympic Stadium; "It was always going to be tough with all the rain and the water on the field. Both coaches were dubious before the start, but in the end it was the right decision, because it got better. There was a lot of pressure at the end, but they only had one real chance, other than that I thought we defended quite well. Anyone who put the ball into the box today was under pressure, because of the circumstances. I felt we tired towards the end, lost our shape a bit, but our defenders worked hard to stay in the game. But to be fair, they were also tired.
I was happy after the first 15 minutes, but at the start we were hacking the ball anywhere. After that we started playing and we created chances in both halves. We hit the post 3 or 4 times and created enough chances to win. We'll play the same game (against Dordoi), we are the home team, we have expectations, see the crowd tonight, so we have to try and win the game for them. Tonight I pushed my two wide men forward and told the team to hit the three strikers early, over the ground and to support the strikers. It worked for us. Though for the midfielders it was like watching tennis.
Nepal tried to play, it was a good game I thought. They were quite compact, competent but didn't make enough chances. They played some decent football. It wasn't an easy game by any means. Wednesday will be a good test for us, Dordoi have won the competition twice before. We are still a new team, eight new players or positional changes, so tonight was a good result for us."