Going ahead put Hong Kong level on aggregate and opened up the possibility of winning Group C. If Anson Wong Ho-chun had done better when one-on-one with goalkeeper Khamidullo Abdunabiev 15 minutes later, Andersen’s plan, as he said afterwards, would have been turned to dust.
“I said to the guys at half-time, I want to play with the same team the second half, but we have a plan,” Andersen said. “If we do that, and it goes wrong, then we will be angry with ourselves.
“It would have been crazy to play with our best team for 90 minutes today.”
“If we could have played with the same team at the end, as we did in the beginning maybe we could win, or draw, but the focus was on Wednesday,” Andersen said.
“If we win this game today, OK, 2-0, we’ll be No 1 in the group, but I don’t think it was possible to win 2-0. If we have to go to extra time and penalties, we lose a lot of energy and Wednesday we are dead.”
https://www.scmp.com/sport/football/article/3235767/asian-games-2023-hong-kongs-best-laid-plans-almost-go-waste-entertaining-second-clash-uzbekistan