Do you, ye of little faith, take this woman…?

By: Bob | July 20th, 2007

Phan Van Tai Em is Vietnam’s player of the year. Vietnam is playing Iraq in the quarterfinals of the Asian Cup on Saturday. Tai Em won’t be playing. No, he isn’t hurt nor is he out with a card suspension. He simply has other plans. He is getting married.

Tai Em made the wedding plans knowing full well that the Asian Cup quarterfinals would be played that day. What he didn’t expect was that his team would actually make it that far, a fact that has not exactly endeared him to his coach Alfred Riedl.

“It’s very disappointing that he has no confidence in his team, or he would not have arranged his wedding for the same day as the quarter-finals,” the Austrian told Reuters.

“I won’t ask him to cancel. He’s invited all the guests already. He just didn’t believe the team had a chance,” Riedl added.

Sounds to me like Riedl is just upset that he wasn’t on the invite list. For Riedl’s sake I hope that Tai Em didn’t invite half the Vietnamese team too. If given the choice between being trounced by Iraq or doing the funky chicken at a Vietnamese wedding I think I know what most of us would choose.

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Category: Asia, World Football

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Brian

Is anybody else watching this match? It would be great if the shot selection was better. There's way too many shots from outside of the box and when Vietnam got a decent look they flubbed it.

Also, what is up with the crowd? They seem to be making a lot of noise, but where are they? Is it fake crowd noise? Because they're invisible if there are actually people there.
Sam

Rob Friend did the same thing with Canada against Guatemala (I think) in the quarters of the Gold Cup.