By: Gil Moriones
MANILA - With the high morale carried over in their emphatic 3-3 vs. Indonesia, Laos attempted to draw another impressive accomplishment but still they shared another sweets with the Philippines as they settled only 1-1 in the continuing ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2024 happened in New Lao National Stadium in Vientiane, Sunday night.
The 6,389 Lao crowd celebrated, not because they scored, but at the expense of Michael Baldisimo at the 34th minute, as he headed the ball going to their own goalmouth, left Patrick Deyto stunned to respond.
An own goal that put the Philippines into another brink of dismal made everyone on the white kit shocked while home team was celebrating as Laos led a single goal before 1st half ended.
The savior in the Myanmar match, Bjorn Kristensen, could not locate any bottom of the net as his solid attempt to put his country into revival turned into waste as the ball only hit the crossbar after the beautiful feed from Baldisimo and the latter rebounded the ball but headily blocked by Lao defender, all happened in the 44th minute.
Paul Tabinas finally located Sandro Reyes inside the penalty box of the Lao defense and Reyes landed his shot from his left foot that successfully converted to equalize against the high-morale Laos in the 77th minute.
However, a supposed to be a game winner by Alex Monis in the 88th minute was disallowed due to an offside call by the linesman.
The 4-3-3 formation by Albert Capellas produced only an equalizer despite domination in possession stats with 76%, compared the Laos' 24%, which produced 535 accurate passes, against 110 by Laos, although both of them launched 11 shots.
With the two draws, the Philippines stayed at third with Vietnam cleanly leading the Group B after their 1-0 vs. young Indonesia.
Must win matches vs. Vietnam at Rizal Memorial Stadium on December 18 and Indonesia on December 21 at the Surakarta will be their uphill assignments for the 149th rank in the FIFA rankings fulfills their want to comeback in the semifinals.
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