BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
THE national Under-20 futsal team slipped to a 7-0 loss to Thai Futsal League leaders Bangkok BTS in their second of three warm-up games in Thailand last night.
They fell to a 7-1 defeat at the hands of Communication Authority of Thailand (CAT) Telecom on Wednesday and will take on Uzbekistan tomorrow.
The youth team will then face Afghanistan in their first match in the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Under-20 Futsal Championship on Tuesday.
National futsal coach Qusmaini Noor Hj Rusli felt that plenty of valuable lessons were learnt from the loss.
“The players learnt a lot today (Friday),” said Qusmaini in a press release from NFABD.
“They learnt how to control their emotions playing an older, better, more physical and more experienced team.
“Bangkok BTS - who are leading the Thai Futsal League right now - played their strongest team and this was a good lesson for our young players as they prepare to face Afghanistan.
“The players were less nervous than in the first game, but there were one or two situations where they lost focus. As you know, Bangkok BTS have many national (Thai) players and two Brazilian imports,” he added.
“Bangkok BTS played more ‘modern futsal’, with more runs, short passes and ‘trapping’ in order to close our players down. We made a few mistakes, and God willing, they will be fixed in our next game against Uzbekistan before our first game of the tournament against Afghanistan.
“We played with more confidence today but missed a few goal-scoring opportunities which were readily available, and this is one thing we will have to improve on.
“Uzbekistan, which is a team which qualified for the World Cup in Colombia last September, will be hard to play against in terms of tactics.
“They also have a bigger physique but we will try to give a good fight and gain momentum ahead of our tournament opener,” continued the Malaysian.
Qusmaini used all his players in for the game as one of the aims of bringing this group of players to the Thai capital is to give them more high-level exposure.
“They got to play two quality games against older opponents, and in today’s game I gave the two goalkeepers more playing time,” he concluded.
