HANOI: Malaysia are only looking for a win in their third Group B match of the 2022 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Cup against Vietnam at the My Dinh National Stadium here, tomorrow night.
The victory over the ‘Golden Star Warriors’ squad will confirm Malaysia’s place in the semi-finals after the Harimau Malaya squad defeated Myanmar and Laos in the first two matches.
National head coach, Kim Pan Gon (pix) said three points against Vietnam, led by his South Korean compatriot Park Hang Seo, could brighten Malaysia’s chances of advancing to the knockout round as group champions.
““We looking for three points to confirm our place in the semi-finals as group winners.
“As we all know, Vietnam are one of the strongest teams in the region , we (coaching team) know their strong points and we also know their weaknesses and we gave all that information to the players,” he said at the pre-match press conference held at the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) here, today.
Pan Gon, however, expects a difficult match for his side to face such team like Vietnam that have been formed for a long time and play according to a good football philosophy.
He said that Vietnam also have an advantage in high-intensity matches as they have had the opportunity to play against great teams in the Asian continent’s highest level tournaments before.
“But for our Malaysia national team, we had go through all tough situations and had chances as well to play in difficult games. We not afraid of anything in front of us, we will go strongly against Vietnam,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pan Gon said Hang Seo is a highly respected coach in South Korea and it was a great honour to be able to compete against him in this tournament.
Commenting on his relationship with the 65-year-old coach, Pan Gon said they had met several times before when managing their respective clubs at the domestic level, in addition to having dined together in several functions.
“As a Korean coach, he is much senior than me, to me coach Park is a very respectful person and all Koreans love him, anyway I’m proud to compete with him in this stage,” said the 53-year-old coach.
Tomorrow’s match will be the first meeting between Pan Gon and Hang Seo, after Pan Gon was appointed to guide the national team earlier this year.
For the record, the last eight years have seen Malaysia have yet to defeat Vietnam in all competitions - losing six and drawing once. The last time Malaysia won was in the 2014 AFF Cup semi-finals second leg with a 4-2 victory.
After two matches, Malaysia lead the group after collecting six points, Vietnam and Singapore, who have only played once, share three points each and are in second and third position, while Myanmar and Laos are in the bottom two position without any points.-Bernama