Ishii reveals that the War Elephants still have flaws that need to be fixed after drawing with Laos 1-1.
Masatada Ishii, head coach of the Thailand national men’s football team, gave an interview after leading a special friendly football match, International Exhibition Matches, against Laos.
In the game, Thailand drew 1-1 with Laos, with Thailand scoring from Seksan Ratree.
“From the two warm-up games this month, we saw many things that we need to practice more, we need to try to improve, we need to find ways to improve our strength, but we need to understand that we only have this much time. For the ASEAN Cup tournament, we want to win the ยูฟ่าเบท https://ufabet999.app championship,” Ishii said.
“Of course, the defense needs to be improved, including the attack when the opponent plays deep, trying to play defense, we can’t penetrate them, we need to practice more. Overall, this time we have new players coming in, and we have very little time, so we can’t play together as much as we expected. That’s what I see.”
“When we conceded a goal, during training we talked to the players that we had to try to communicate, which is something we always emphasize to be careful about at this point. According to the results, we didn’t come to play defense. When we were leading but didn’t get a second goal, they equalized, so we felt sorry for the result that we didn’t win. But as I said, in the past two games, we used the players to continue preparing for use in the ASEAN Cup next month.”
Seksan Ratree, who scored in this game, said, “I feel happy to be able to score my first goal for the Thai national team, but I still feel sorry that I couldn’t lead the team to victory. I think everyone played well together, but we still have small details in the attacking game that we need to improve, both in terms of movement and finishing in the final moment.”
Laos head coach Ha Hyuk-jun said, “I am happy with the team’s performance, even though we only had 12 days to practice together. I think that drawing with Thailand will give us confidence before playing in the ASEAN Cup. Personally, Laos has many areas to improve, and the results are one factor, but I try to focus on the players’ mental state.”
“In the ASEAN region, the Thai national team is my favorite team because they have a Japanese coach and have a similar playing style to Japan. However, there are also Indonesia and Vietnam, so I still can’t say for sure whether Thailand will be the ASEAN Cup champion this year.”
After this, the Thai national team will have a program to compete in the ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2024 between 8 December 2024 – 5 January 2025.