"Good game"

David Booth at the aftermatch press conference

Phnom Penh Crown head coach David Booth was upbeat after watching his team lose with virtually the last kick of the game from the penalty spot, against Kyrgyz team Dordoi in tonight's AFC President's Cup tie. "It was a good game by both teams given the conditions. I thought we were quite comfortable for most of the game, we dealt with everything right up until the last thirty seconds. We had a good chance right at the end but we didn't hit the target. We had a few chances to be fair but we've got to make the keeper work, especially in these conditions. I thought we played quite well, we were positive considering the circumstances - it's only 48 hours since we played in the same conditions - so I thought our fitness was good, we just lost concentration at the very last moment.
We can't talk about creative football tonight, any chances came about because the ball was sticking or skidding in and around the box, that created the excitement tonight rather than good play. Should the game have been played - in Asia they'll play it, anywhere else they may've waited until tomorrow. The referee was correct to bring us off in the first-half, it was impossible, it was a danger. It got a bit better and both teams did quite well to make a game of it.
I was happy with 90 minutes but not happy with the last thirty seconds. It was a shame really as it spoiled a lot of hard work. It took a penalty to beat us, other than that it would've been 0-0 and we would be saying we'd done really well. But the penalty takes away a lot of the gloss of the hard work we put in. They've worked hard tonight, put a lot of work in, as well as the other night, so it looks promising if we can continue in this vein.
These are good games for us, against Dordoi and coming up in Singapore, a good test for us. We've played quite well in the last couple of games, which will set us up quite well for the local fixtures when we return from Singapore. Obviously I'm happy to progress [in the AFC President's Cup]. Today's game was probably irrelevant but the players stuck to their guns, they wanted to play, they wanted to keep the pressure on themselves to win, which is encouraging."
Dordoi head coach Sergey Dvoryankov was less happy. "The game was not good because of the weather - the pitch conditions were awful. We couldn't play our normal game. We had the better chances to score but it didn't work for us. We should've had another penalty as well as the one we got. We want to win this cup as we want to play in the AFC Cup competition next year."