HANOI – Azkals coach Thomas Dooley looks at the bright side despite the Philippines’ 1-3 setback to host Vietnam at the end of group hostilities Friday night at My Dinh Stadium, saying the humbling loss should fire up the Pinoy booters when they go into next week’s AFF Suzuki Cup 2014 semifinals.
After that great performance against Indonesia that secured them a place in the Last Four with a match to spare, the Philippine Azkals turned toothless against an efficient Vietnamese side, allowing the hosts to get the vengeful win and steal top spot in Group A with seven points versus their six.
The Azkals will face the top finisher in Group B - likely powerhouse Thailand - in a home game on Dec. 6 at Rizal Memorial Football Stadium and a road match on Dec. 10, seeking to get a good result to barge into the finals.
“I’m not upset or anything. I know how it is as a player: Sometimes when you play a game like this and you lose, you’ll be hungry again,” said Dooley.
“We have a week to rest (before the first leg of the semis) and I’m pretty sure the players will perform differently and they will be playing to their best,” he added.
Already qualified after an impressive 4-0 romp over Indonesia Tuesday and an earlier 4-1 spanking of Laos, the Azkals were a tad slower against the Vietnamese, who needed a win to avoid complications going to the semis.
“During warm-up today, I didn’t see, I missed the spark from my players. Sometimes when you’re in the semifinals and you didn’t have to win, no matter what happened you’re in the semifinals, then you loosen up a little bit. Sometimes it’s good, you play better, but sometimes not so good and when you play against a team like Vietnam, you have to have that spark,” he said.
Vietnam pressed for a goal early against a Phl side that played without injured Juani Guirado and Patrick Reichelt and hit the mark with Ngo Hoang Thinh’s long-range effort nine minutes in play to the delight of the near capacity crowd.
Vu Minh Tuan doubled the lead five minutes after restart then Pan Thanh Luong made it 3-nil with a volley at the 58th. Sub Paul Mulders pulled Phl one back by flicking home a cross from Jerry Lucena barely a minute after Vietnam’s third goal.
“It’s not good to concede a goal in (the first) 10 minutes. That first goal obviously killed our strategy,” said Dooley.
The Azkals mentor tweaked his formation early on with Misagh Bahadoran taking the right wing and Martin Steuble the left but it backfired and he switched them back to their original places.
“We knew they (Vietnamese) are stepping up, they’re opening some space on the outside. That’s why we had Misagh on the right and Martin on the left. With left foot, right footed to spin the ball in behind the defense. But after 1-0 it didn’t work anymore because Vietnam also dropped back a little bit more, play a little more far, so we switched back,” he said.
It was also payback for Vietnam, which suffered a humiliating 0-2 loss to the unheralded Azkals in the same venue in the 2010 Suzuki Cup, and a 0-1 defeat two years later in the group play in Thailand. The 2008 champs Vietnamese returned to the semis after missing the bus in 2012.