Southeast Asian newspapers react to the results of the U23 regional tournament draw

According to the draw results for the 2025 U23 Championship, which were just announced this morning (May 30), the Vietnam U23 team is in the same group as Cambodia and Laos. Meanwhile, group C includes Thailand, Myanmar and Timor Leste.

Host Indonesia is in Group A along with Malaysia, Philippines and Brunei. This is also the only group in this year's tournament, with the presence of 4 teams.

Báo Đông Nam Á phản ứng về kết quả bốc thăm giải U23 khu vực - 1 — U23 Vietnam (white shirt) will compete for the U23 Championship with Indonesia (Photo: VFF).

After the draw for the U23 tournament, CNN Indonesia wrote: "Coach Gerald Vanenburg's U23 Indonesia team wants to regain dominance of the tournament from U23 Vietnam."

“In the four times the tournament has been held, the Vietnam U23 team has won the championship twice, while the Indonesia U23 team has only been in the top position once in 2019,” CNN Indonesia added.

In the most recent tournament in 2023, U23 Vietnam defeated U23 Indonesia in the final match, after a penalty shootout. At that time, the U23 Vietnam team was led by coach Hoang Anh Tuan, while the U23 Indonesia team was led by coach Shin Tae Yong (Korean).

This year, the tournament will take place in the archipelago country, CNN Indonesia informed: "The tournament will take place from July 15 to July 29, at two stadiums including Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta and Patriot Candrabhaga Stadium in Bekasi".

Báo Đông Nam Á phản ứng về kết quả bốc thăm giải U23 khu vực - 2 — U23 Thailand has a new coach, Mr. Takayuki Nishigaya (Photo: .

“Singapore is the only football nation in the East that has confirmed that it will not send a representative to the regional tournament. In 2023, the Lion Island's youth football team will also not participate, after their failure at the 32nd SEA Games,” are still the lines written on CNN Indonesia.

Meanwhile, Thailand's leading sports daily Siam Sport wrote about the draw results of the 2025 U23 Championship: "Thailand U23 was lucky to fall into Group C with the presence of Myanmar and Timor Leste."

“This year’s tournament has a total of 10 participating teams. These teams are divided into 3 groups, one group has 4 teams (group A), the other two groups have 3 teams (group B and group C). The teams compete in a round-robin format in the group stage.

The top teams in each group, along with the second-placed team with the best record in the three groups, will advance to the semi-finals. From the semi-finals, matches will take place in Jakarta,” Siam Sport added.

Another newspaper from the Land of Golden Pagodas, Thairath, expressed its opinion: “The championship title is the announced goal of the Thai U23 team at the 2025 U23 Championship. The team of coach Takayuki Nishigaya (Japanese) is in Group C, alongside the teams of Myanmar and Timor Leste.”

U23 Thailand was the champion of the first tournament in 2005. However, in the most recent tournament in 2023, Thailand was eliminated in the semi-finals by U23 Indonesia.