Asian Games: Hong Kong women facing ‘tough test’ against Thailand as part of Hangzhou preparations

Hong Kong boss Ricardo Rambo believes Sunday’s friendly against Thailand gives his women’s team an “excellent chance” to step up their preparations for the coming Asian Games in Hangzhou.

The hosts will face the Thailand national team, who reached the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2015 and 2019, at Tsing Yi Sports Ground.

“We had only trained together for around 10 days, with players in and out,” Rambo said. “We are really focused on preparing for our Asian Games.

“I think it’s really a good experience for them to get matches of this level, even though we are not on our top match fitness. Of course, we are going to have some difficulties but it’s part of the progress we will go through before the Games.

The Brazilian centre-back, who played in Hong Kong from 1998 to 2006, also praised his team’s opponents, who his side have played once already this week in a training game behind closed doors.

“Thailand are a great team,” Rambo said. “They changed the direction of the ball quickly, were very comfortable on defence, and caused us problems when they regain the ball on a quick counter-attack.

“It’s going to be a good challenge for us to put this into practice because we are not going to see this in other games.

With Hong Kong ranked 34 places below Thailand, who are the 44th best team in the world, captain Cheung Wai-ki said her side was facing a tough test, but would “try to be relaxed and play our best”.

The visitors have only lost once in eight outings since being beaten 2-0 by Cameroon at the inter-confederation play-offs for this month’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Nipawan Panyosuk, the Thailand captain, expressed surprise at Rambo’s decision to leave out her Chonburi FC teammate Wai Yuen-ting, who she called “the best player on our team”.

“She’s technically gifted, she always had a good performance, and there were absolutely no issues with her when she played in the Thailand women’s league,” Nipawan said.

Asked two weeks ago when the squad was announced, Rambo put Wai’s absence down to “disciplinary issues”. Wai was said to have withdrawn from the team in 2021 citing “unreasonable” circumstances.