Vietnam women's team vs UAE: Victory within reach

At 7:00 p.m. on July 2 at Viet Tri Stadium, the Vietnamese women's team will meet the UAE (FPT Play THTT) in the second match of Group E of the 2026 Women's Asian Cup qualifiers.

Will the joy of victory return to the Vietnamese women's team? - Photo: NGOC LE

Against a supposedly weaker opponent like the UAE, the Vietnamese women's team is aiming for a victory to move closer to securing a ticket to the Asian Cup finals.

After a comfortable 7-0 victory against Maldives in their opening match, securing 3 points, Coach Mai Duc Chung's team needs another win to consolidate their top spot in the group. Meanwhile, the UAE and Guam women's teams are currently ranked 2nd and 3rd in Group E respectively with 1 point each, while Maldives is at the bottom with 0 points.

Because they played later, before hosting the UAE, Coach Mai Duc Chung's team had time to wait for the result of the match between Guam and Maldives. If Guam didn't win, the Vietnamese women's team only needed to win against UAE to secure qualification one round early. If Guam won against Maldives, a victory against UAE would still be enough for the Vietnamese women's team to maintain control before the final match. In that case, with 6 points, the host team would only need a draw against Guam (4 points) to qualify for the 2026 Women's Asian Cup.

In both of the above scenarios, the necessary condition is that the Vietnamese women's team must win against the UAE. The balance of power, both theoretically and practically, favors Coach Mai Duc Chung's team. Indeed, in 2025, leading up to the Asian Women's Championship qualifiers, the UAE women's team will almost exclusively train domestically and play friendly matches against some mid-level or weaker teams.

They drew two matches against Bahrain, won two against Bangladesh, and lost four against the Philippines and Malaysia. Both historically and currently, their head-to-head record against Southeast Asian teams doesn't favor the UAE national team. On the world women's football rankings, the UAE women's team is ranked 117th, significantly lower than the Vietnamese women's team (ranked 37th).

Despite bringing naturalized players to Vietnam, the UAE women's team did not register for the qualifying round, instead using 100% domestic players. This unusual decision could be good news for the Vietnamese women's team.

In fact, in their opening match against Guam, the UAE women's team was completely overwhelmed, almost entirely on the defensive for most of the game and rarely had a chance to shoot at the opponent's goal. "The UAE Football Association only restarted its women's football development program a few years ago. Although we face many difficulties, we will still strive to compete and see where we stand," said UAE women's team head coach Vera Pauw.

The message from the Dutch coach suggests that the UAE will almost certainly do everything to secure a point against the Vietnamese women's team, similar to how they did against Guam. Given the opponent's defensive tactics, Coach Mai Duc Chung and his players need to capitalize on scoring opportunities to quickly achieve their goal of qualifying for the finals and improve their finishing ability.

Following the 7-0 victory against Maldives on June 29th, coach Mai Duc Chung spoke about the Vietnamese women's team's problems: "The players missed too many opportunities. We should have won by a larger margin, but the players slowed down in the second half. Therefore, we need to improve our finishing ability in the next match against UAE."

Q. CUONG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/doi-tuyen-nu-viet-nam-dau-uae-chien-thang-trong-tam-tay-20250702110617548.htm