U19 CAND coach admitted their intention to eliminate U19 HAGL 2

In the U19 National 2020 finals, HAGL 2 U19 had the first victory in the tournament when they defeated U19 Binh Duong 3-0. Meanwhile, in the match at the same time, U19 CAND and U19 SLNA held a 1-1 tie.

With these results, U19 HAGL 2 would be eliminated. Topping Group B is U19 CAND at the end of the group stage with 5 points.

However, it is worth mentioning in this match that the lack of fair play of U19 CAND and U19 SLNA. To get such a "good" result, the players of the two teams bought time for most of the game in the second half. They just passed the ball back and forth and waited for the match to end. This made the audience watching this match extremely angry.

In an interview after the match ended, U19 CAND coach Pham Quang Thanh admitted to directing the players to do so:

"Today's match between U19 CAND and U19 SLNA, we kept good professional quality in the first 70 minutes. But after knowing that U19 HAGL was leading 2-0 over U19 Binh Duong, both CAND and SLNA want keep the score 1-1.

Actually, if I was a fan, I would be a bit sad. But I am a footballer, sometimes I have to accept this, have to calculate for the longer journey. It is true that the last 20 minutes of the match, it was not football.

In fact, if we risk to push up to find a goal and fails, the opponent counterattacks and score, it is worse. I think the U19 SLNA side has the same mind as CAND ".

However, coach Pham Quang Thanh also thinks that this is part of the game and that U19 HAGL 2 must accept and get used to this:

"When I started working with football, I also let my players know the cruelty of football. We have to accept it no matter what. It will be very painful but when it comes to situations like this, we must be decisive or we will lose.”