“We couldn`t play well in the first half. I think my players thought it would be easy to beat Vietnam. We made substitutions in the second half and all three players played well,” said Uzbekistan coach Kasimov.

“We knew that Vietnam would use counter-attacks, but we tried to attack and conceded a goal. They tried to stop us playing our game, but Vietnam didn’t have a lot of chances.

“Suyunov played well for his first match. I liked how the young players played and I will give them chances in the coming matches.”

“Uzbekistan had 80% possession, but they are not big team, they are just a strong team,” said Vietnam coach Nguyen Van Sy, who is in temporary charge of the side as Hoang Van Phuc is preparing the U-23 side for December’s South East Asian Games in Myanmar.

“Uzbekistan made dangerous attacks in the first half and we expected that they would try more in the second half and this is why we tried to tighten up the defence, but we conceded in the second half. We planned to score from counter-attacks, but we changed our style after the second goal.

“Our aim was to take a point from this game, but we have no points after three games. We will now try to beat Uzbekistan in Vietnam next month.

“Uzbekistan are strong, but I trust my players that they can beat Uzbekistan. We will also look to make positive changes to our squad.”