Myanmar women gave a polished display to hand Malaysia a 5-0 beating in a SEA Games football match on Thursday and a place at the top of the table.
But you will not see head coach Reijners Rogers Johannes smiling from ear to ear as he is not about to get carried away with the big scoreline.
The win was Myanmar’s first after their 3-2 defeat to Thailand in the opening match. Vietnam and Thailand are in second and third place respectively but have a game in hand over Myanmar.
The Dutchman, however, gave credit to Malaysia for a “respectable fight” despite the thumping win by his team at the UiTM FC Stadium in Shah Alam.
“Malaysia performed better than their previous encounter with us when we beat them 2-1 at the AFF Women’s Championship in Mandalay, Myanmar last year.
“We won big but Malaysia have improved. Malaysia have some young talented players and they gave us a harder time this time compared to last year’s AFF Championship.
“We made many mistakes in the first half and allowed Malaysia to come at us. However, a pep talk at half time worked in our favour. We created space and utilised the gap with crosses and to score,” said Reijners.
The veteran, who guided Netherlands to their first women’s World Cup in 2015, believes the match against Vietnam will be a crucial decider although he refused to reveal his medal expectations for the KL2017 Games.
“Overall I am very satisfied with my team performance but we have to do better as the top three teams are expected to fight for the gold. We lost our first game, so it will be important for us to focus well on our next match which is against Vietnam,” said Reijners.
“Our main focus now is to take one game at a time and then we will see finally what medal we can achieve,” said Reijners.
The bronze medalists currently stand at the top of the standings with three points on a better goal difference ahead of Vietnam and Thailand – who both have a game in hand. – BY ALVIN OH
