Vietnam coach Alfred Riedl is worried his team will continue to struggle against the higher-ranked nations in the region because they are too small to compete in big matches. After Vietnam were defeated 2-0 by Iraq in the Asian Cup quarter-finals on Saturday, Riedl said his young players did not stand a chance because they were shorter and weaker than their opponents. "The problem we have is we are just too small," he told a news conference reported by Reuters. "Playing in South East Asia we can be successful, but we struggle in the rest of Asia because we are too small and this is a big problem ... We can do our best to improve our football but this is one problem I cannot fix. The players' class is there but we will lose matches against teams of similar ability only because they are bigger than us."