AFF WOMEN’S C’SHIP: MYANMAR MADE TO SWEAT AGAINST PHILIPPINES

VIENTIANE (17 Oct 2011) – The Philippines put up some fierce resistance before succumbing to a 2-0 defeat to Myanmar on the second match day of the AFF Women’s Championship 2011 here at the National Stadium.

Myanmar, fielding a side which is being moulded for the SEA Games in 2013, were not expecting the Philippines to be much of a challenge.

“Sure we were expecting to score lots of goals but the Philippines have improved a lot and that made it tough for us,” said Yoshinori Kumada, the chief coach of Myanmar.

“We have to improve obviously from this first game where although the team played to instruction, we just did not score enough goals and we have to remedy that for the next match.”

Despite scoring the early goal in the fourth minute when My Nilar Htwe capitalised on a defensive error, the Myanmar girls found Philippines a hard nut to crack when the latter held out for long periods.

They even tried to catch Myanmar on the break but the Philippines girls just did not have enough pace to make things happen.

The closest they came to scoring a goal was a freekick at the half hour mark but the swerving shot from Natasha Alquiros flew just over the crossbar.

That failure to score saw My Nilar scoring the second goal for herself and also for Myanmar when she knocked the ball in from the far post off a cross from the right.

Myanmar stepped up the tempo in the second half but either through some fortunate defending or just plain hard work, the Philippines stood their ground all the way to the finish

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