Coach Park happy with players despite Iran loss
Coach Park Hang-seo praised his young wards for putting up a tough fight against the top ranked team in Asia.
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Vietnam suffered a 0-2 loss to Iran in their second game of Asian Cup, but head coach Park Hang-seo was not disappointed, given the relative strengths of the teams.
"We all know how strong Iran is, and they showed that on the field today. But Vietnam didn’t go down without a fight. The gap between two teams is very large and you can see that on the FIFA rankings. They are the number one team in Asia. It will take lots of time to close the gap. However, we still have room for improvement, because our players are still young," Park said.
With this loss, Vietnam needs an outright win in the last match with Yemen to have any chance of advancing to the next round. Three of the six third-place teams from the group stage with the best performances will go further.
"It’s not easy for us to get a slot in the next round. One thing for sure is that we have to win the next game and maintain our determination to win," Park said.
Iran head coach Carlos Queiroz after the win said Iran should’ve scored more.
"Iran dominated the game from the beginning to the end. Two goals are well deserved, but we should’ve scored more based on the number of chances that we created," Queiroz said.
Vietnam will play the last game of group D against Yemen on January 16.
