ASEAN Cup Diary: Day 1
To many, it might mean absolutely nothing. But to Southeast Asians, this time of year means pride is on the line.
Yes, it is that time of year again. When the year starts to wind down, it is also the time for Southeast Asian nations go up against each other for national pride and, starting from this year, FIFA points! It is hard to deny that the quality of the region has gone up quite a lot in the past few years. Foreign coaches are dominating the tournament, nations start to find and naturalise players, which can only be a good thing to bring the quality of the region up.
As such, the Notebook will be temporarily rebranded into the ASEAN Cup Diary (not sponsored!) throughout this tournament as I try my best and cover as many matches as possible. It is not a new idea for me as I have tried to do this for the Asian Cup earlier this year, but I did not have the discipline back then to maintain the consistency. But with matches being played at friendlier hours, fingers crossed that I will be able to go through every matchday. Without further ado, let’s get on with day 1!
Cambodia 2-2 Malaysia
On paper, this seems like an easy win for Malaysia considering their stance in the region. But there are a couple reasons why it might not seem like a one-way tie:
Johor Darul Tazim and Selangor, two of the strongest clubs in Malaysia, outright refuse to release their players due to clashes with their domestic schedule. Yes, you can do that here because the ASEAN Cup is not considered to be within the international window. So that is a huge part of Malaysia’s core not showing up for this tournament.
Meanwhile, Cambodia has improved a fair bit over the past few years. After Keisuke Honda (yes, that Keisuke Honda) left them with a considerable performance at the last edition, improvements have also been made on the club side of things, most noticeably at Preach Khan Reach Svay Rieng. They have invested heavily and have helped the quality of some of the domestic players improved, while also looking to develop a high quality generation of young Cambodian players.
The first 45 minutes of the match was the perfect example for that point. While there were some scrappy moments, Cambodia tried to match Malaysia whenever they had the ball and they absolutely did. The fact that the possession share for the first half was almost at even (Cambodia’s 49% to Malaysia’s 51%) meant that the host was not afraid to control the ball when they had the chance. They also had a few good possession sequences to progress the ball down the field, but lacked that composure when it came to the final shot/final ball. If only they stopped taking long shots from 30 or 40 metres out…
Malaysia, currently managed by a former Barcelona and Adelaide United coach, had some moments where they also played good football. Not to the level of possession football that Barcelona are playing yet, but there seemed to be a tendency to play down the wings with long passes and through balls being made to send wingers into a position where they can advance into the final third. From there, overlapping runs from full-backs and a few crosses were what Malaysia was looking for to create chances. And that was what they got after a cross from Daniel Ting that helped Stuart Wilkin (a Southampton academy graduate!) scored the first goal of the tournament.
Overall, so far so good for Malaysia…
…is what I would say if Cambodia did not come out from the half so strongly. They looked like a different team after the break, even though it seemed like they were not controlling the ball as much as they did in the first half. A discipline 4-4-2 mid-block with a high defensive line forced Malaysia to go wide most of the time, where the away side seemed to not be able to do much.
When Cambodia regained possession, they immediately looked to counter attack and capitalised on Malaysia’s high defensive line. Their rest defence did not seem to be well-organised, which led to Cambodian wingers like Kim Sokyuth ran through freely on the left. Those counter-attacks led to goal-scoring chance, which Abdel Coulibaly capitalised on to equalise for Cambodia, or a few corners, which then led to Sa Ty’s goal to put the host in the lead. One thing that Cambodia really improved in the second half was their composure with the final ball. No more aimless crosses or shots, but the players were now tried to get the ball into the final third and then worked it out from there, which had led to more dangerous chances being created.
As Cambodia started to slow down, Malaysia used that to push forward for the equaliser. It came through another UK-born player in Fergus Tierney, but it still seemed like Malaysia was stuck for ideas and just resulted in playing the ball out wide and making hopeful crosses into the box. It could work, but it was definitely not the prettiest style and was not enough to break down a discipline Cambodia side.
Summary
It was not a bad opening match for this year’s tournament as both teams provided great entertainment, though no winner was found in the end. But as I have mentioned, Cambodia put up a great fight and did not shy away from trying to dominate the match on a few occasions, which they successfully did and pushed Malaysia back. Yes, there were some scrappy moments here and there, but you just cannot fault a nation that is looking to improve as time goes on.
Timor-Leste 0-10 Thailand
Probably one of the few matches that I will have to rewatch through the highlights, and it is a bit annoying that the official YouTube channel does not keep the full match up after matches finish. But I probably did not miss that much considering Thailand was considered the heavy favourite and just absolutely teared Timor-Leste apart, even though the lineup was not their strongest.
There were a few familiar faces like centre-back Pansa Hemviboon, left-back Nicholas Mickelson, central midfielders William Weidersjö and Ben Davis, winger Suphanat Mueanta, and striker Patrik Gustavsson. But the rest of the Thailand’s squad felt very unfamiliar with the inclusion of a lot of new and young faces. And yes, Thailand is not an exception when it comes to naturalising players if you are wondering, “wait, some of those names do not sound like Thai names”. I did not also choose those names randomly because most of the names mentioned left a mark on the match and had at least one goal contribution.
Timor-Leste came out with a 4-1-4-1 formation with a clear intention of sitting back, frustrating Thailand, and preventing them from playing through the defensive block. Unfortunately…the away side also had talents out wide like Mickelson or Suphanat, and that is not mentioning centre-backs and midfielders who could make long passes or through balls to send wingers in behind Timor-Leste’s defensive line. That was exactly what Thailand did to get into the final third, where the wingers and full-backs were found through the passes or they dribbled the ball to the byline for a cutback cross towards Davis or Gustavsson.
You could also see the difference in quality between Timor-Leste and Thailand. While the away side looked tidy and comfortable whenever they had the ball, the host (on paper, because they are playing at a neutral ground for this tournament) made mistakes and errors here and there, and even a couple of such errors even led to goals for Thailand. Things got so bad to the point where Timor-Leste had to replace their goalkeeper midway through the second half not even because of an injury, and they still could not do any damage control. The fact that Thailand finished the match with a non-penalty xG of 4.57 while Timor-Leste’s xG was only 0.2 tells you a lot about how dominated Masatada Ishii’s side were in their opening match.
It was an interesting opening day of the ASEAN Cup, to say the least. A lot of drama and also a lot of goals scored by three out of four teams that took place on day 1. While Thailand asserted their dominance against Timor-Leste and sent out a statement to the rest of the region, Malaysia struggled against an improved Cambodia side and it could be a worrying sign that they might have a hard time getting past the group stage. On a bye, Singapore will look at these two matches with a keen eye as they might feel a bit more confident about their chance of getting into the semi-final.
Day 2 will start right after day 1 as the contenders of group B heads out to show their intention of qualifying for the semi-final. Vietnam is the obvious favourite (not bias!) considering they are bringing the full-strength squad with no players based abroad and a few new faces that local media has hyped up quite a bit. They will play Laos, who might be one of the two weakest teams in the group. Meanwhile, Indonesia, with a very young and local-heavy squad, will face Myanmar as Shin Tae-yong might look at this tournament as a testing ground for new ideas and talents that can support the main squad in the third round of the World Cup Qualifiers. Philippines receives a bye this matchday but that also means they will not show what they can do until the second matchday, so do not sleep on them! But for now, see you for day 2!
Hi Daryl, I'm your article reader from Indonesia. I liked your analysis. Can't wait to watch our country face each other💪