Ninh Binh travelled to Myanmar, lacking many of their key players who are under investigation for involvement in a match-fixing case. Despite the scandal, Ninh Binh’s younger players played a good game with excellent spirit in an effort to regain the sentiments from home fans.
Brazilian-born midfielder Dinh Van Ta opened the scoring after four minutes with a cunning free-kick from outside the penalty area before Jamaican forward Kavin Bryan fired in a second for Ninh Binh two minutes later.
Cezar Augusto narrowed the gap to 1-2 for Yangon with a successful 54th minute penalty converter; however, it could not save his team from a home-field defeat.
In the 65th minute, Hoang Vissai restored Ninh Binh’s two-goal advantage and Van Ta then fired a beautiful long-range strike five minutes later to seal an emphatic win for the Vietnamese club.
With this victory, Ninh Binh wrapped up their Group G qualification campaign impressively, earning 16 of 18 points after five wins and one draw.
As Group G winners, Ninh Binh will host either India’s Churchill Brothers or Singapore’s Home United in the Round of 16 while runners-up Yangon will travel to Indonesia to take on Group E winners Persipura Jayapura.
Defending V-League champions Hanoi T&T will take part in their last Group F qualifier against Indonesia’s Arema Cronus today, to decide overall group winners. The Vietnamese team currently lead the Group F table with 12 points, two more than runners-up Arema.
