by Sid Ventura
KUALA LUMPUR - The Philippine Azkals arrived in this bustling Malaysian capital late Thursday afternoon for their Saturday clash with Timor Leste, their spirits high after an exciting 1-0 win over Singapore last Tuesday in the 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup.
Their opponents, who will officially be the "home" team in Saturday's match at the Kuala Lumpur Football Stadium, are Group B's only winless team, but their performance has been progressing, and coach Sven-Goran Eriksson knows better than to take them lightly.
"They had a very, very difficult start to the tournament," Eriksson said, referring to Timor Leste's 0-7 thrashing at the hands of Thailand. But in their second game against Indonesia (a 1-3 loss), they did well and scored the first goal. So we have to pay attention.
"It's a very important game for us. We started well in the tournament, good result and three points. We have to play very well."
The match will air live on AksyonTV starting at 8:00PM with livestream on ESPN5.com and tv5.com.ph/aksyontv.
The Azkals are one man down after defender Luke Woodland was ruled out for the rest of the tournament following his leg injury suffered in the first half of the Singapore match.
"Luke is not available for the rest of the tournament," Eriksson declared. "He is out for, according to the doctors, a month. He is completely out."
Timor Leste, according to coach Norio Tsukitate, will also miss two players due to injury, although he declined to identify them except to say that one was a "right side defender" and another a "central defender with a knee problem".
The O Sol Nascente, as the Timor Leste men's football team is known, still have no points on the board but still have an outside chance of advancing to the semifinal round. That will entail winning their last two matches, starting with the one against the Azkals on Saturday.
"We have had two games against Thailand and Indonesia," Tsukitate said. "Our players are very young but (have) good experience already. We have two more games. But we'll never give up for the knockout round. Nobody knows the result. We have to focus."
Eriksson has cautioned his team against over-confidence, stressing that anything can happen in football.
"I hope that we play a good game, of course. Play good football, defend well and win the game. I hope so, but you cannot take that for granted. If you don't perform, if you don't fight, if you have the wrong mentality going out there, you will not win."
The Azkals turned things around against Singapore in the second half, with Eriksson making a key substitution at the break that brought in James Younghusband for Mike Ott. But the veteran coach says he has not yet decided on his ideal starting unit.
"The best 11, you never know what it is. I think that changes from one match to another. It's true that we played better in the second half. If that was due to the changes, I'm not sure about that. We became better into the game, we kept the team together more in the second half, we played the ball better to each other in the second half."
The coaching staff will use Friday night's training to decide the starting 11 for the match, and see which players are in the best shape following their tough match Tuesday and a day's worth of traveling from Bacolod to Manila and finally to Kuala Lumpur.
"We'll see," Eriksson said. We traveled the whole day and we have one training (Friday). We'll see after training, the legs. Look at the legs, if they work or not. I think we'll be okay but after the training we will decide who's going to start."
Skipper Phil Younghusband said the players are feeling fine and made a conscious effort to recover quickly following the Singapore match.
"Straight after the game, Sven stressed the importance of recovery," said Younghusband, who played his 100th cap last Tuesday. "There's not much time for training because we have to travel and then there's two days. The most important thing is we are recovering. It's not always easy to recover when you are traveling and being on a plane for four hours with not much leg room. But we feel okay. Singapore was a physical game but I think one of the strengths of Singapore is trying to slow the tempo down so the tempo wasn't as high as other games. But it was a physical game. I think the players feel okay. I feel okay personally. We're doing a lot of stretching to make sure we recover quickly and we get the right food intake."
Eriksson, who has been with the team for less than a month, has liked what he has seen so far, and is eager to find out how the team fares against the rest of Southeast Asia.
"We have a very good team. Physically strong, technically good. And I like the spirit. This Suzuki Cup will tell all of us how good we are if you compare with Thailand, Indonesia and so on."
http://tv5.espn.com/story/_/id/25290809/azkals-not-taking-timor-leste-lightly?src=rss%3Fsrc%3Drss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
