Finding it hard

Head coach Hok Sochetra was left to explain the reasons for the 5-1 thumping by surprise package Timor Leste in his first competitive match in charge of the Cambodian national team. He came up with; "The players were finding it hard against the more physical side from Timor. Most of my players are under the age of 21-years-old so they struggled somewhat. With the several injuries to the senior players, we have to use a lot of the players from the Under-21. It is not a great situation to be in but that is what we are left with. And with young players, their level of concentration is unpredictable." Certainly the result made a mockery of the FIFA rankings for the five teams competing in this qualification stage of the AFF Suzuki Cup. Cambodia are ranked second in the group at 189, whilst Timor are wallowing at 206. The action on the pitch last night certainly didn't mirror that disparity in the ranking positions. Cambodia failed to get a shot on target until Keo Sokngorn's last-minute penalty conversion, whilst Timor found the back of the net with relative ease. In the later match played yesterday, the home nation, Myanmar, left it until a few minutes from the end to grab the single goal it required to put Brunei in their place, but again, the sovereign state that sits on the island of Borneo, and are ranked at 203, belied their pre-tournament status by very nearly holding the best ranked team, who sit at 184. The group action continues tomorrow, with Timor taking on their Burmese hosts in the early kick-off, whilst Cambodia get a quick chance to redeem themselves against their old foes from Laos (ranked at 193), with a 6.30pm Cambodian-time start. The last time the two teams met in Suzuki Cup action, they played out a goal-less draw in 2010 but more recently, Laos knocked Cambodia out of the World Cup with an 8-6 aggregate win over two legs. Coach Sochetra will be seeking a much improved performance from his Cambodian players, whilst the football fans back home will expect to see more passion and fight from their team, as well as more attacking intent, qualities that were sadly absent against the Timorese.
The Cambodian coach had this to say in the lead up to the Laos match. “The main thing now after our defeat against Timor Leste is that our players have to get more confidence and get back to playing again. The players were sad about the result when we talked after the game but now we must now put that behind us and try to prepare for our next game. The problem yesterday was that each of our players lost confidence so we have to forget everything now and move on. We have a good rivalry with Laos but I don’t know what to expect of them tomorrow. They have a new coach and a lot more experienced players compared to us. However in terms of physical size and skill, we are quite similar to them and we play football in a similar way so it may be quite a close game.” His opposite number, the Laos coach Kokichi Kimura, from Japan, had his own view. “Playing a first game in a tournament is difficult because you don’t really know what to expect and Cambodia have many good, young players so will not be an easy game. I thought that in terms of tactics and organisation, Cambodia were better than Timor Leste but Timor Leste have more skilful and powerful individuals who caused them problems. They had trouble with the size of the Timor Leste players but they can match up better against our team because In terms of our systems and players, we are quite similar although we may have a bit of an advantage because our players are quicker. We have confidence but it will be a tough tournament for us because we have to play four games in seven days and we will probably have to use all 20 of our players with so little time for rest in between games.”