HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam claimed the top spot in Group B of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Futsal Championship 2018, after defeating Malaysia 3-1 yesterday in Bangkok, Thailand.

Đỗ Thị Nguyên opened the score for Việt Nam just 17 minutes after the first whistle.

A minute later, captain Nguyễn Thị Thanh failed to score after she missed a close-range finish in front of the net.

Malaysia showed that they were still looking for a win, and a minute later Zurain Kamarudin positioned herself in the thick of the Vietnamese backline to receive Siti Nur Atiqah Rashid’s corner kick, where she made no mistake from close range to reduce the deficit.

Malaysia decided to move to power play tactics in the second half, as they had to win to advance to the next round, while Việt Nam just needed a draw.

However, the last year’s runners-up failed to convert their opportunities into a goal, while Việt Nam regained their two-goal advantage when Thùy Linh and Trịnh Thanh Hằng netted one each at the last minute.

As Group B leaders, Việt Nam will face the Group A runners-up in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

At the post-match briefing, coach Trương Quốc Tuấn of Việt Nam said, “My players showed their progress after each match of the group round. They are improving. We will try to go further and further in the tournament, and we will prepare our young players for the future.”

On the other side, Addie Azwan of Malaysia was quoted as saying, “First, I want to congratulate Việt Nam on reaching the quarter-finals. I think today showed that they were a good team and they played better. We tried so many things, but we couldn’t score. Our team played a good controlled game and tried hard to win this game, but we couldn’t do it.” — VNS