Cambodia Sent Football Players U16 to train for AFF U16 in July

By Sok Lak

Cambodia sent 20 national football players under 16 year old to train 10 days at Thanh Long Training center in Ho Chi Mi, Vietnam for preparation in ASEAN Football Federation Under-16 (AFF U16) Championship 2011 in July. 

National Football Japanese coach Daisuke Yoshioka lead a young football team which contain 20 players from various teams in Cambodia to train 10 days, which from 20 April to 30 April at Thanh Long center in order to prepare for AFF U16, which will hold on July 7-17.

Before leave Cambodia, Daisuke Japanese coach Daisuke Yoshioka chose all football from various teams. As the result, he got three players from province such as Koh Kong, Kandap (Prek Kdam) and Siem Reap. For the rest, all are from Phnom Penh especially Preah Khanreach Club and only one player from Chlam Samoth.

Phea Sopheaktra, Assistant coach of U16 National team explain about the reasons of choosing players that the reason why this team contain many players from Preah Khanreach club, because this club has many young players as a group age such as grassroots, U13, U16, U18 and first team, in which they are training four or five times per week, so it is mean that they have many activities in training. In selection stage, we are looking for good quality of players for national team only four clubs that sent their players for selecting, which has totally 86 players. From province, they sent only 38 players when we request for 50 players from province in selecting.

By the way, Build Bright University club has no players under 16. For National Defense club, they did not send their players for selection.

The AFF U16 Championship 2011 has eight teams from eight countries. They are Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Timor Leste and Indonesia take into group A and Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Philippines take into group B. The tournament is also a preparation for the AFC qualifiers, will be held on July 7-17, 2011 with the following groupings.

For AFF U23 Championship will hold on July 18-24, 2011 in Palembang in Indonesia which has five teams: Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar and Timor Leste. The AFF Under-19 Championship will be hosted by Myanmar on September 1-10, 2011, which has 8 terms participated. They are Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Malaysia in group A and Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam in group B.

For the AFF Women’s Football Championship will hold by Vientiane in the second week of October. The participating teams for this tournament are Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam. 

The tournament which is being used in preparation for SEA Games this year, only five teams are taking part, which are Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar and Timor Leste.

Source: The Southeast Asia Weekly, April 23-31, 2011, Vol 5, Issue 17, Page 12