▲ Coach Park Hang-seo shakes hands with Laos national football team coach Michael Weiss
Korean coach Park Hang-seo and coach Kim Pan-gon won the first match of the Southeast Asian Cup, also called the Southeast Asian World Cup, side by side.
Vietnam, led by coach Park Hang-seo, beat hosts Laos 6-0 in their first group B match held in Laos.
Vietnam, who first won a victory in Group B together with Malaysia, who defeated Myanmar in the previous match, took first place in the group before the defeat.
The Southeast Asian Cup is the most prestigious biennial tournament in Southeast Asia and has been called the Suzuki Cup.
Coach Park’s Vietnam, eliminated in the semifinals of the previous tournament, is the ‘winner’ of this tournament in name and in fact.
Among the 10 participating teams, the IFA ranking is also the highest with Vietnam in 96th place.
Also, this competition is Park’s “farewell stage”.
Coach Park, whose contract expires in January next year, ends his five-year partnership with Vietnam after this tournament.
From the first game that kicked off the Last Dance, Coach Park heralded a smooth start to the championship with a comfortable landslide win.
Vietnam ended the first half 2-0 with Van Hau’s opening goal in the 15th minute and Do Hung Duong’s extra goal in the 43rd minute.
The attack did not stop in the second half and scored 4 more goals.
In the 10th minute of the second half, Ho Thanh Tai rushed to the goal and scored the third goal, and 3 minutes later Van Howe shook the net again with an outgoing left foot.
Then, in the 37th minute of the second half, Van Toan and Boo Bantan fired back-to-back in the second half of extra time to wrap up the 6-goal victory.
On the 27th, coach Park will play the second group match against Malaysia led by coach Kim Pan-gon.
Malaysia, led by coach Kim, won 1-0 in Myanmar and moved up to second place in the group after Vietnam.
(Photo = AFF Championship website/Twitter acquisition, Yonhap News)
