Tri-nation football: Myanmar face stiff challenge against Kyrgyz Republic (preview)

Imphal, March 24 (IANS) Myanmar will face a stiff challenge against the Kyrgyz Republic in their second match of the Tri-nation international football tournament at the Khuman Lampak Stadium, here on Saturday.

The tri-nation international football tournament sees international football being featured in Imphal, Manipur for the first time, as India play host to Myanmar and Kyrgyz Republic.

The two outstation teams have already been in Imphal over the past week, where they have been training in preparation for the tournament. Myanmar had faced India in the opening match, which the hosts won 1-0.

Myanmar head coach Michael Feichtenbeiner looked to ease the pressure off from his players' shoulders, as he chose to focus on performance, rather than results.

"Our target is to improve our performance first, and then to improve as a team. Only then can we reach something in terms of results. Of course, we want to get better results, that's the main target overall," said Feichtenbeiner in the pre-match press conference.

Feichtenbeiner showed a lot of respect for the opposition team when asked about the Kyrgyz Republic.

"They have a strong line-up that will come to their advantage tomorrow. The last few matches were not as successful for us, but we want to change that and try our best," he said.

Kyrgyz Republic, who arrived in India on March 16, and have been training in Kolkata and Imphal ever since, have quietly analysed the matches of their two opponents and are plotting their own moves.

"We watched the last game (between India and Myanmar), and have seen their previous matches too. We've been collecting useful information from every match that we've seen, and have planned accordingly," said head coach Alexander Krestinin.

Asked whether he would field different players for the match against Myanmar, Krestinin said,"We will not do any experiments like India did against Myanmar. We will come with our best team and try to win the game."

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