Futsal

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s Sanna Khánh Hòa failed to earn a ticket to compete in the AFC Futsal Club Championship’s semi-final after losing 2-6 to Dibba Al Hissin SCC of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the quarter-final match at Bangkok Arena yesterday.

Khánh Hòa dominated the game in the first minutes and created several opportunities to open the scoring, but Dibba proved that the team had good defenders, so Việt Nam failed to convert chances into goals.

Dibba went on the attack in the last minutes of the first half. This forced Khánh Hòa to make errors against their rival. However, no goals were scored in the first half.

After the break, Nguyễn Trung Nam opened the scoring for Khánh Hòa in the 22nd minute.

But Dibba equalised at 26 minutes thanks to Abdalla Salim.

Two minutes later, Dibba moved into the lead as Hamad Mohamed’s powerful free-kick sent the ball flying past Nguyễn Đinh Ý Hòa.

In the 32nd minute, Salim took full advantage of Vietnamese defenders’ faults to raise the score 3-1.

Only two minutes later, Lê Anh Tuấn narrowed the gap to 2-3 for Khánh Hòa. However, the Vietnamese team then suffered three more losses.

To reach the quarter-final match yesterday, Khánh Hòa topped Group D, while Dibba were second in Group C.

"I think my players played with a great mentality; however, we made some individual mistakes that led to goals,” Khánh Hòa Coach Đặng Đình Khang was quoted as saying on the website the-afc.com.
They then decided to play power-play to try to level the score.

 “There are always two sides to power-play - if you can’t score and you make mistakes, they will score,” Khang said. “I had to take the risk because it was 2-1 at that time. My players have gained a lot in experience, but in terms of psychology they have to improve. They have applied my strategies; I will continue working with them and I hope they improve in the future.”

Meanwhile, Dibba coach Mohamed Al-Marzouqi told the-afc.com that they have written history for futsal in the UAE. To qualify for the quarter-finals was one of their ambitions when they came here, but now they are up with the top four teams in the semi-finals. — VNS