Final time

The Cambodian senior national team went down to a 2-1 defeat by the Malaysian U-21 team in their final warm-up match last night ahead of their Myanmar adventures in the qualification group for the AFF Suzuki Cup that will begin this Friday. Touted invariably as a friendly against either the Malaysian senior team or their U-23 Olympic squad, it turned out to be a game against their U-21 team at the Wisma FAM at Kelan Jaya. Keo Songorn gave Cambodia the lead on 21 minutes only for two second half strikes, by Fadhli Shas on 52 minutes and Thamil Arasu with 23 minutes remaining, putting the game out of their reach. Coach Hok Sochetra commented: “We missed three players for most of the training camp but they were available for our game last night and played in the first half against the Malaysian XI. We took the lead in the first half but we changed most of our players at half-time and we ended up losing 2-1. However, it was a good workout for the players and good preparation for our first match against Timor Leste on Friday.” 
The result is unimportant in the context of Hok Sochetra's squad getting game-time together ahead of their opening match with Timor Leste this coming Friday, in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar. I believe the games will be shown live on the MyTV channel here in Cambodia, which will be great news for Cambodian football fans, who will get the chance to see exactly how their new coach approaches each game in this important qualifying group. The top two in the group go onto the Suzuki Cup finals in November, so Hok Sochetra will have to be more adventurous in his tactical and formation choices than he was in the recent goal-less friendly on home soil with the Philippines. Cambodia need to target the matches against Timor Leste and Brunei as winnable games and should set his team up to go on the offensive from the off. The matches against Laos and Myanmar will be a different proposition and he will likely adopt a more cautious approach with the focus on counter-attack.