Vietnam futsal team faces two fateful opponents in Asian tournament

Why was the Vietnamese futsal team chosen as the number 1 seed?

The draw took place on the afternoon of June 26 in Malaysia. The Vietnamese futsal team is in Group E. Lebanon and China are considered two direct competitors for coach Diego Giustozzi and his team. The Vietnamese futsal team once faced Lebanon in the play-off round for a ticket to the 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup. After two draws of 0-0 and 1-1, the Vietnamese team then won the right to continue thanks to the away goal rule. Meanwhile, at the 2024 AFC Futsal Championship, the Vietnamese team defeated China with a score of 1-0 in the group stage.

The 2026 Asian Futsal Qualifiers will take place from September 20 to September 24. This is a key tournament for the Vietnamese futsal team in 2025, alongside the SEA Games which will take place in December in Thailand. According to the plan, to prepare for the continental futsal qualifying round, the Vietnamese team will gather after the 2025 National Futsal Cup ends next August.

Đội tuyển futsal Việt Nam đụng độ 2 đối thủ đầy duyên nợ ở giải châu Á- Ảnh 1. — The Vietnamese futsal team has the task of winning the top spot in the group and passing the qualifying round.

The 2026 AFC Futsal Championship Qualifiers will feature 31 teams, divided into 8 groups, including 7 groups of 4 teams and 1 group of 3 teams. The teams will compete in a round-robin format based on the rankings in the countries hosting the groups. The top 8 teams in each group and the 7 best second-placed teams will qualify for the 2026 AFC Futsal Championship Finals, to be held in Indonesia in January 2026. As hosts, Indonesia will have a direct entry to the finals and will not have to participate in the qualifying round.

Notably, for the first time, the AFC has applied the seeding grouping for the Asian futsal qualifiers based on the latest FIFA futsal rankings. Accordingly, the Vietnamese futsal team is ranked 5th in Asia and 31st in the world , so it is placed in the number 1 seed group. The teams in the same group with Vietnam include Iran, Thailand, Japan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq.

Being selected as the No. 1 seed is a recognition of the stable performance of the Vietnamese futsal team in recent years. From 2014 to now, the Vietnamese team has passed the group stage 5 times in a row at the Asian futsal tournaments, notably reaching the top 4 in 2016.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/doi-tuyen-futsal-viet-nam-dung-do-2-doi-thu-day-duyen-no-o-giai-chau-a-185250626153106519.htm