Games Today
(Panaad Complex)
4:30 p.m. — Malaysia vs Cambodia
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BACOLOD — The Laos football team earned the bragging rights as the first team to score a win in any event played in the 23rd Southeast Asian Games – thanks to Visay Phaphouvanin.
Phaphouvanin knocked in two goals, including one on a penalty kick in the 79th minute, to power Laos to a 3-2 upset of Myanmar at the start of the football competition last night at the Bacolod City Sports Complex.
"This is good news for our country. This is big considering the fact that we’re ranked lower than Myanmar," said Laos coach Valeriv Valirey, a Russian, through an interpreter.
A semifinalist in the Vietnam Games two years ago, Myanmar appeared to have tied the match after converting an inside-the-box tight shot through Soe Myat Min towards the end.
But to their horror, the shot was ruled as off-side by the linesmen.
In an earlier play, Khin Maung Tun’s potential game-tying short header bounced off the bar to the big disappointment of the Myanmar bench and its sizeable crowd in the venue formerly known as Paglaum.
