Interview with Myanmar U 23 Manager Valizar Popov

Interview with Myanmar U 23 Manager Valizar Popov

Question1 - Our Myanmar Football fans admire your team management, enthusiasm, including your behaviours also. May I know your view on this?

1.)

I’ll be very glad if really all Myanmar football fans are happy with my effort to help the Myanmar football and my hard work concrete with National Team-U’23. I’m trying my best since my first day here 2 years ago to help all these young players to improve their level in all football aspects, including physically, technically, mentally and especially tactically. So far in the last 2 years I’m very happy with the effort and the hard work of absolutely all players and I hope the new young players which will participate next year in the team to continue to improve their level every day, training and match.

Question 2- May I know you and your Team's tournment and friendly match in 2021 or after period if covid will be finished?

2.)

Next year 2021 our team will have 3 big tournaments and of course the most important will be the next SEA Games 2021 in November in Vietnam and also U-23 AFC Qualifiers which will be in Myanmar most probably in September or October. There will be also AFF Tournament for U-23, maybe in the middle of the year, that we also will use to start building the new team in order to prepare the best possible way for our main target which will be again the SEA Games. Of course that’s only the initial plan for the next year but we depending from the global situation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so at the moment we can’t predict when exactly will be these tournaments and also if will be possible to play some friendly international games before these championships. Now we just must hope everything to normalize as soon as possible to can restart the normal football routine.

Question 3_ In Myanmar National League, Magway FC already stops to participate in future.May I know your view on this?

3.)

I heard also about that and I’m really very sorry if this is true. Magwe is one of the most traditional clubs in Myanmar football and last 2 years I had so many players from Magwe, which as a club I’m really grateful that they give chance to young local players to play and that way help the Myanmar national teams in all age groups, especially my team U-23 last 2 years. I really hope they’ll find some solution and will save the club because will very pity if they stop the same way like in the middle of the last year already stoped Zwekapin and Chin United.

Question 4- Myanmar football fans still remember you and your team in 2019 Sea Games. They admire you and your team performance. But, Our fans want to see our Myanmar football team with Champion Trophy. But, we understand that we need to work more and try together. May I know your view on this?

4.)

Yes , our team and all the players did really great job last SEA Games 2019 and absolutely well deserved won the bronze medals. In this tournament that was our maximum as 2 teams - Vietnam and Indonesia, was better than us. In the same time we finished in front of some teams with great traditions like Malaysia, Thailand , the host Philippines, so that’s talk about our team performance itself. Next SEA Games we will try to improve our performance and for sure our target will be already bigger, so all Myanmar football fans must be absolutely sure that I’ll try my best to prepare the team the best possible way in order to fight for the title in Vietnam 2021. I want more than anybody Myanmar to be champion and to win absolutely every possible game and I’ll try my best to work harder next year in order to achieve something big, because Myanmar have very talented young players and I’m very happy with the quality of the players that I’m finding every time when I’m scouting all the possible league matches and tournaments. But of course there’s something more important than winning every game or tournaments in this age - this is to create players for the first Senior National Team and also to help the players to improve their level and if possible to start playing abroad in better foreign leagues like Japan, Korea, China, Thailand , Vietnam, Malaysia e.t.c.

Question 5 -May I know Your favourite football match till now?

5.)

We played some really very good matches, so it’s difficult to chose only 1 specific match, but will give you some examples, like both matches against Indonesia in AFF Tournament and SEA Games, against Timor Leste and Macao in AFC Qualifiers, but maybe our best matches was the last Friendly match in Hanoi against Vietnam before the SEA Games and after that the matches against Malaysia , Timor Leste and both matches with Cambodia in the SEA Games. Anyway, maybe my favorite match especially in tactical aspect was against the host Philippines in the SEA Games, which win open the door for the TOP 3 in the tournament- in this game against Philippines we not only win very difficult match against the host, but we did with style, with great football, dominating the ball possession first half and in the same time finding the free space in the second half, we scored 2 very good goals after combinations that we especially trained and also created so many good goal scoring chances using different tactical approach during the match. That’s why despite so many good games, maybe this win against Philippines was my favorite tactically played match.