Myanmar face stiff challenge against Kyrgyz Republic in Tri-Nation

The Tri-Nation International Football Tournament sees international football being played in Imphal, Manipur for the first time, as India host Myanmar and Kyrgyz Republic.

The two outstation teams have already been in Imphal over the past week, where they have been training in preparation for the tournament. Myanmar had faced India in the opening match, in which the hosts won 1-0.

Myanmar head coach Michael Feichtenbeiner looked to ease the pressure off his players' shoulders, as he chose to focus on performance, rather than results.

"Our target is to improve our performance first, and then to improve as a team. Only then can we reach something in terms of results Of course, we want to get better results, that's the main target overall," Feichtenbeiner was quoted as saying by AIFF.com.

Feichtenbeiner showed a lot of respect for the opposition team when asked about the Kyrgyz Republic.

"They have a strong line-up that will come to their advantage tomorrow. The last few matches were not as successful for us, but we want to change that and try our best," he said.

Kyrgyz Republic, who arrived in India on March 16, and have been training in Kolkata and Imphal ever since have quietly analysed the matches of their two opponents and are plotting their own moves.

Head coach Alexander Krestinin said, "We watched the last game (between India and Myanmar), and have seen their previous matches too. We've been collecting useful information from every match that we've seen, and have planned accordingly."

When asked whether he would field different players for the match against Myanmar, Krestinin said, "We will not do any experiments like India did against Myanmar. We will come with our best team and try to win the game." (ANI)