Coach Kim Sang-sik: 'The Vietnamese team is still on the right track'
Coach Kim Sang-sik acknowledged his players' efforts and said that the Vietnamese team is still on the right track.
Doan Ngoc Tan's efforts helped the Vietnamese team earn a hard-fought point against the Philippines. After this draw, coach Kim Sang-sik and his team have a great chance to win a ticket to the semi-finals. If they only draw with Myanmar, the Vietnamese team will officially advance as the top team in Group B.
After the match, coach Kim Sang-sik shared: "This was an extremely difficult match for the Vietnam team. We were unable to score or create clear opportunities in the first half, especially, we regretted being denied a penalty right at the beginning of the match.
However, the whole team tried hard in the second half to equalize in the last minute. I thank the players for trying their best to get this draw. We still have a chance to enter the semi-finals. The Vietnam team thanks the fans who always follow the team."
"Having to play home and away matches with such high frequency also has certain effects on the players. But the players still performed well in their assigned tasks until the end of the match," the strategist born in 1976 said about the team's difficulties when playing continuously.
The Korean strategist also did not hesitate to praise his students: "The players did not give up and fought until the last minute to get the equalizer. I think this is a miracle thanks to the efforts of all my students."
Also attending the press conference, midfielder Ngoc Tan agreed with coach Kim Sang-sik about the difficulties that Vietnam had to face. "We were more or less lucky to get a point in the last minute, because the Philippines played very uncomfortably. Their defense was tall and very strong, so it was really difficult to compete one-on-one. In addition, we were not used to playing on artificial turf, which has a very different surface hardness and ball bounce," said the owner of the equalizer 1-1.
This 1-1 result helps Vietnam firmly stay on top of Group B with 7 points, 3 points more than Indonesia and Myanmar in second and third place with 4 points each.
In the final round, the team only needs to draw with Myanmar on December 21 at home stadium Viet Tri to complete the group stage in the leading position. However, Ngoc Tan affirmed that he and his teammates will try to win against Myanmar in the final round to bring joy to the fans./.