Yangon: The message from Myanmar coach Antoine Hey couldn’t have been any clearer ahead of the Group A blockbuster against Vietnam and that was his side aren’t prepared to settle for anything less than maximum points.

With both nations locked at the head of the section, along with Malaysia, on six points a win for either could be decisive and the Myanmar boss was adamant that he’s not thinking of anything other than a win.

“We are not going to play for the draw or not going to rest any players, let me make that clear.

“We want to win this match in front of our home crowd and that’s what we’re here for, as to what impact that will have on the standings let’s see after the match.”

Pressed on the same topic, an unusually reserved Vietnam coach, Park hang-seo, was tight-lipped about both his aims for the game and as to whether he’s considering the possibility of rotating his squad.

“Now is not the time to talk about my approach to the game or my team selections.

“If you want to know the team you will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.”

One player that definitely won’t appear is Myanmar’s suspended leftback, Win Thein Than, and Hey noted that will be a blow for the hosts who have been forced to come from behind in both of their wins over Cambodia and Laos.

“I’m not pointing the finger at defenders or attackers because we are a unit and we are working together to try and eliminate our mistakes – we’ve done our homework and learned our lessons from those two matches where we went one goal down and to come back in the second half shows the spirit of the team.”

Whilst noting that Vietnam have been strong defensively to this point (they’re yet to concede across their first two matches) the experienced German coach did express surprise at how the Golden Stars played against Malaysia and hinted that he knows how to topple one of the tournament favourites.

“The defence of Vietnam is definitely one of their qualities because they’re not conceding goals and they have a very competent goalkeeper but it’s a little bit surprising when we watched the match against Malaysia that they only had around 30% ball possession at home.

“That was something that raised some question marks and we’ve identified the areas where we think they are not so strong so we have our ideas and plan for the match and hope that plan will work tomorrow.”

“We hope for a fantastic evening and atmosphere in the stadium and I hope that we can celebrate a sparkling night together with a fantastic result that means everybody goes home with a smile and we’re very hopeful and confident that this will be the case.”