NEPAL COULD'VE PLAYED BETTER INSISTS GYOTOKU

Kuching: Nepal coach Koji Gyotoku was less than satisfied with his team’s performance, despite seeing them notch up a 3-0 win over Brunei Darussalam that secured the South Asian nation a place in the semi-finals of the AFC Solidarity Cup Malaysia 2016.

Goals from Nawayug Shrestha, Bharat Khawas and Bimal Gharti Magar gave Nepal their first win of the competition to add to their scoreless draw against Timor-Leste in the previous round of matches, ensuring Gyotoku’s team finish in first place in Group A ahead of Brunei.

But while the win sees his side set up a last four meeting with either Mongolia or Laos, the Japanese coach was far from happy with Nepal’s showing.

“Today’s result is a good result but I think the performance is not enough,” he said. “I’m not satisfied, but the pitch was better than in the first match and we were able to play possession football. But it wasn’t so good. We need to work until the next game.

“I think the Nepal players can play better than today. I saw them play well in Nepal but today is not so good. They can play with quality in Nepal on artificial turf and I think they have some fear when they play on natural turf, but I hope we can do more.”

Nawayug Shrestha put Nepal in front on the stroke of halftime with a close range effort at the second attempt before Bharat Khawas doubled his side’s lead with a fine right footed strike 18 minutes from time. Bimal Gharti Magar then put the gloss on the performance 10 minutes from time from the penalty spot.

The result means Nepal have four points from their two games in Group A while Brunei also progress to the semi-finals by virtue of their opening round 4-0 win over Timor-Leste, where they will meet Group B winners Macau.

“It’s very disappointing that we lost 3-0 and it’s important for the players and the coaching staff that we shouldn’t be overconfident after our 4-0 win against Timor-Leste,” said Brunei coach Kwon Oh-son. “We have to learn from this and we will try to do our best on the training ground to learn from our mistakes and not be overconfident.

“Our defensive line has suffered a lot of setbacks and some of them were playing with pain for the 90 minutes. We made some changes in defence and they didn’t do so well and that’s why Nepal were able to go up two goals. We need to fix that before the semi-finals.”