On February 23, Beijing time, the Southeast Asia U23 Championship continued, and Laos, ranked 187th in the world, once again broke out of the cold, defeating Malaysia 2-0.
In the end, Malaysia was eliminated and Laos advanced to the final four of the Southeast Asian U23 Championship for the first time in history!
At present, FIFA has a total of 210 countries and regions in the ranking, and Laos has only 23 teams behind it, which is enough to see that the strength of the team is quite limited, but this is all in the past.
However, in recent years, Laos' youth training has also been exerting its strength, and two consecutive victories over Malaysia are the best proof.
The Southeast Asia U23 Championship is divided into three groups, with Group B originally having four teams, namely Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Laos.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that myanmar and Indonesia have many positives in the team, they have to regret withdrawing from the Champions League. Therefore, there are only two teams left in this group, Malaysia and Laos, and the two teams play each other for two legs to determine the ranking of this group.
In the previous first leg, Laos won 2-1 at the Prince Stadium. Facing the same opponent for the second time, Malaysia played rather uneventfully in the first 45 minutes.
Malaysia, which is only possible to qualify with a win, has suffered multiple long pass errors, with Laos captain Bounkong's two threatening shots in the 7th and 31st minutes saved by the Malaysian goalkeeper.
In the 43rd minute, Bounkong took advantage of a free kick in front of him to score the team's first goal.
After conceding the ball, Malaysia was forced to press the whole line and fight to the death. In the 86th minute, Laos' substitute Bouaphaivanh took advantage of a Malaysian defence loophole to extend the lead to 2-0.
At the end of the whistle, Laos with the first leg of 2-1, the second leg of 2-0, the first time in history to advance to the Southeast Asian U23 Championship Final Four, the whole team frantically splashed water to celebrate, as if winning the championship.
This small country with a population of only 7.27 million made history.
This scene is also reminiscent of Vietnam, also once considered to be a fish belly team from Southeast Asia, Vietnam has greatly improved its football level through deep cultivation of youth training. After the Chinese men's football team lost to Thailand, it also lost to Vietnam.
Today, Laos is repeating the path Vietnam has followed. Maybe one day, the Chinese team really needs to be careful of this once weak brigade from Southeast Asia!