Tough game, few training sessions says Herbert

Jun 01, 2016 - 04:55:05 | Shimaaz Ali
National team coach Ricki Herbert during today's press conference. (MS Photo: Shimaaz Ali)

Male’, MALDIVES – Maldives national team coach Ricki Herbert has said that they had few training sessions ahead of the AFC Asian Cup playoff match against Yemen tomorrow night.

“We got few days and two or three training sessions and we had played one friendly game against local league club Valencia. But I can say things are changing now and things will be better in the future.” Ricki said in the pre match press conference held at National Football Stadium this evening.

Ricki also said that he brought in some new players to the national team for this game and they have the potential.

“I always say that it always good for the players to play these kinds of international games and tomorrow night will be a chance for the players to play such a game.”

“I have brought in some new players to the squad and I know the players and I know their potential so I know they are giving a good fight for the senior players.”

When asked about the previous meeting with Yemen in 2007 he replied that that’s past and things changed during these years.

“They had a very good squad for the World Cup group stage matches and I don’t know what to say. It will be different game and the players might be different and there might be some players who had played in 2007.”

Yemen coach Abraham from Ethiopia. (MS Photo: Shimaaz Ali)Yemen coach Abraham from Ethiopia. (MS Photo: Shimaaz Ali)

We need a point – Abraham

On the other hand his counterpart Ethiopian Abraham Ambrota said that they came here to win the match against Maldives or minimum to get a point.

“We will play very carefully as we are going to play an away game. So we will do our best to get three points or just a point atleast.”

“We started our preparation five weeks back and we had some good time. We hope that we can get a good result against Maldives and qualify for the next round.”

He also said that his team is getting better now and the match against Philippines in FIFA World Cup Qualifier proves that.

“When we played our last game in the group we played very well and our group was tough when compared to the teams who played against Maldives.”

Abraham also added that due to the political unrest in the country they cannot play a home match since 2012 and it was a big problem for them.

“Since 2012 we cannot play a single game in our home ground due to the things happening in our country and as of that we didn’t get a good result. But we are working to adapt neutral ground and we have being training in Doha for few weeks.”

In 2007 Maldives played against Yemen in the FIFA World Cup 2010 preliminaries and Yemen won on aggregate by 2-3. Yemen won their first leg by 3-0 while in National Stadium Maldives won the match by 2-0.

Maldives will play against Yemen in AFC Asian Cup playoff tomorrow night at 2100 hours at National Football Stadium.

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Boyko on Jun 01
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The standout words from Herbert’s interviews as usual are ‘few, not enough’, all those words which carry a negative connotation, meaning you may play to the best of your skills and ability but since we did not have enough practices we are susceptible to mistakes, a collaspe. A subconscious message to players you may not need to throw your limbs and body’s in the harm’s way in the name of this match.A subtle way of say be easy on yourself. By the way is the other team coming after months of practice especially for this match? So stop this crap! First and foremost, discard this defeatist mindset before anything.
Imma on Jun 01
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It seems to me that the negative atmosphere that generally surrounds this country appears to have rubbed off on Herbert. When he first arrived, he was talking about masterplans. Now he just looks defeated. You can listen to the likes of Suzain before every AFC Cup match and he says pretty much the same things. "We are confident of winning, even though we have a lot of injuries and didn't get enough time top prepare for this match etc." As you said, players listen to their coaches speaking and go out to matches with the mindset that, it's alright to be bad, just don't be too awful. I really miss the never-say-die spirit of the players of the late 90s and early 2000s. Whenever a big team came to town, neither our players nor fans used to care about how good they were, we all just knew that the players were going to give their all and give the opposition a huge fright. Now, our current players look like frightened little rabbits on the pitch. After the 60th minute mark, they look like they don't want to be on the pitch anymore and halfheartedly runs around waiting for the full time whistle. That bravery of the players of old have been knocked out, possibly as a result of playing season after season in an empty stadium.
footballmad on Jun 02
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This time THE most pre-match inspiration has come from Tom and Easa (Messi) in his short TVM interview.

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