Viet Nam News
HA NOI — Viet Nam claimed the top spot in Group B of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Futsal Championship 2018, after defeating Malaysia 3-1 yesterday in Bangkok, Thailand.
Do Thi Nguyen opened the score for Viet Nam just 17 minutes after the first whistle.
A minute later, captain Nguyen Thi Thanh failed to score after she missed a close-range finish in front of the net.
Malaysia showed that they were still looking for a win, and a minute later Zurain Kamarudin positioned herself in the thick of the Vietnamese backline to receive Siti Nur Atiqah Rashid’s corner kick, where she made no mistake from close range to reduce the deficit.
Malaysia decided to move to power play tactics in the second half, as they had to win to advance to the next round, while Viet Nam just needed a draw.
However, the last year’s runners-up failed to convert their opportunities into a goal, while Viet Nam regained their two-goal advantage when Thuy Linh and Trinh Thanh Hang netted one each at the last minute.
As Group B leaders, Viet Nam will face the Group A runners-up in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
At the post-match briefing, coach Truong Quoc Tuan of Viet Nam said, “My players showed their progress after each match of the group round. They are improving. We will try to go further and further in the tournament, and we will prepare our young players for the future.”
On the other side, Addie Azwan of Malaysia was quoted as saying, “First, I want to congratulate Viet Nam on reaching the quarter-finals. I think today showed that they were a good team and they played better. We tried so many things, but we couldn’t score. Our team played a good controlled game and tried hard to win this game, but we couldn’t do it.” — VNS