T

he Indonesian squad expressed optimism of its chances of advancing from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Futsal Championship ASEAN Zone's qualifier that runs Feb. 20-25 in Jakarta.

Futsal is a variant of soccer played mainly indoors on a smaller pitch. The game is played between two teams of five players, one of whom is the goalkeeper, and up to seven substitutes per team.

"As hosts, we definitely have a better chance of advancing from the qualifiers," Indonesian team head coach Robby Hartono told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He expressed confidence after his team posted an excellent performance during two recent tryouts in Thailand.

"However, we will not underestimate our opponents in this qualification, although we are currently the second best team after Australia *among the seven countries in the qualifying round*," he said, adding that underdog teams such as Myanmar, would also be a threat as they had "nothing to lose".

Indonesia is ranked ninth in Asia, while Australia is in the top five.

Indonesia is in Group A in the qualifiers along with Australia and Myanmar. Australia faces Myanmar on Saturday, while Indonesia will face Myanmar on Sunday and Australia the following day.

"We'll use the qualifiers to get more experience to develop futsal in our country. We will need a lot of luck to draw with Australia and Indonesia," Myanmar team manager Yei Htut Tin said Friday. Yei added that his team mostly consisted of young players between the ages of 18 and 19.

Meanwhile, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia comprise Group B of the ASEAN Zone qualifier.

"Indonesia is definitely a favorite to qualify. I think Indonesia and Vietnam will be the two strongest countries in this competition, so we will put up a good performance," Australian head coach Steven Knight said. The Australians were stopped two years ago at the quarterfinals by eventual runners-up Thailand.

"The Vietnamese team is currently the rising futsal star. I saw their improved performance during the recent tryouts in Thailand," Robby said, echoing Knight's predictions.

"We are not looking for experience, we are here to play our best and to qualify," Vietnam assistant coach Ngo Le Bang said.

The winners and runner-ups in both groups will have play-off matches to determine the two best teams who will directly qualify for the AFC Futsal Championship 2010 in Tashkent on May 23-30.

The two losers will meet in Tashkent in a play-off for the remaining spot.

This will be the second installment of the biennial AFC Futsal Championship, first held in 2008. The championship was previously held annually since its establisment in 1999.

Indonesia passed the qualifying stage in 2008, but failed to advance from the first round of the finals as it finished third in the group behind Thailand and Kyrgyzstan. Iran are reigning champions.