Asian Futsal Championship 2026: A spectacular pivot from Southeast Asia

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - A series of upsets have occurred at this year's Asian Futsal Championship, with Indonesia being the surprising contender. The team from the archipelago almost won the championship, if only they had a little more luck.

This year's final was one of the most dramatic matches in the tournament's history. Indonesia at one point led Iran 3-1 in regular time, then went on to lead 5-4 in extra time, only to be pegged back to 5-5 in the 49th minute.

That was the penultimate minute of the second extra time period (in futsal, each regular time period is 20 minutes, and each extra time period is 5 minutes, not including time out of play). Indonesia lost in the penalty shootout. With a little more luck, the team from the archipelago could have won, and the history of Asian futsal would have taken a completely different turn.

Southeast Asia speaks out strongly.

It's worth noting that Iran is the world's 5th-ranked futsal team. Above Iran are only extremely strong futsal nations like Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and Portugal, all of whom have won the World Cup.

Indonesia (in red) has been creating a series of upsets at the 2026 Asian Futsal Championship (Photo: AFC).

Excluding this year's tournament, Iran has won the Asian Futsal Championship 13 times. Yet, the Indonesian futsal team still played with extreme confidence and composure against a team that has almost dominated Asia for many years.

Even Thailand's futsal team at its peak over a decade ago, when they had Suphawut Thuanklang, the best player in Asia in 2013, couldn't make things so difficult for the Iranians in a continental championship final, and didn't come this close to winning the Asian championship.

In fact, Indonesia has been developing very rapidly in recent years, coinciding with the arrival of coach Hector Souto (a Spaniard). After leading an Indonesian club to two futsal championships in the archipelago, Hector Souto was appointed as the interim coach of Indonesia.

Then, this interim coach led the Indonesian national team to win the Southeast Asian Championship in 2024 and the gold medal at the 33rd SEA Games in 2025, effectively dethroning Thailand and becoming the number one futsal nation in Southeast Asia.

Hector Souto received little attention because, prior to his brilliant achievements with Indonesian futsal, the Spanish coach had no notable accomplishments.

When mentioning Spanish coaches, people often think of Bruno Garcia and Miguel Rodrigo, coaches who have achieved success with leading futsal nations in the continent such as Japan and Thailand.

The success of Indonesian futsal in recent years is closely linked to the name of coach Hector Souto (Photo: FBNV).

Hector Souto himself was also an assistant to coach Bruno Garcia from 2015 to 2016, the period when Bruno Garcia helped the Vietnamese futsal team qualify for the 2016 World Cup for the first time.

It was during this period that coach Hector Souto learned a great deal from his seniors, before he brought that experience and useful knowledge to Indonesia, fully utilizing his strengths with the country's futsal team.

Indonesian players have shown significant improvement in technique, futsal skills, mental strength, and physical fitness (Coach Hector Souto, during his time working under Coach Bruno Garcia in Vietnam, was the assistant in charge of physical training).

In particular, Indonesia currently has a very abundant pool of players. This is the most important prerequisite for Indonesia to maintain its continuous progress in recent years.

Players like captain Iqbal Iskandar, Samuel Eko, Gunawan, Adriansyah, Rio Pangestu, and the tournament's best goalkeeper Ahmad Habiebie are now names known throughout Asia. These players were instrumental in the spectacular 5-3 victory against four-time Asian champions Japan in the semi-finals, and then nearly beat Iran in the final.

Immediately after the tournament ended, Indonesia's coach Hector Souto stated: "We were very close to winning the championship, which is a proud achievement. We gained confidence because this year's tournament had many strong teams."

"Objectively speaking, Iran and Japan are still stronger than Indonesia in futsal; we don't have as many high-quality players as them. However, our job is to be confident for future tournaments and prepare well for the Indonesian national team in the upcoming competitions."

"We need to have really good training camps and quality matches in the domestic league every weekend," the Spanish coach affirmed.

Indonesia leads the region, but the Vietnamese futsal team is by no means weak.

Indonesia's excellent performance confirms that the futsal team is by no means weak. In the last three years, the team coached by Diego Giustozzi (from Argentina) has been one of the few to defeat Indonesia. That was a 1-0 victory at the SEA Games 33 last December.

The stronger Indonesia becomes, the more futsal in Southeast Asia benefits (Photo: AFC).

Even the match where the Vietnamese futsal team lost to Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the 2026 Asian Futsal Championship was very dramatic. It was a game where the Vietnamese futsal team put their opponents in a very difficult defensive position.

Some domestic futsal experts believe that if the quarter-final match had lasted about two more minutes, Indonesia might not have been able to withstand the continuous pressure from the Vietnamese futsal team. In that case, we could have equalized 3-3 (instead of losing 2-3), and the outcome of the match and the tournament would have been very different.

The Vietnamese futsal team is currently undergoing a transition in its squad. Many of the former key players are absent from the 2026 Asian Futsal Championship in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, players in this year's squad such as Da Hai (21 years old), Ngoc Anh (22 years old), Cong Dai (21 years old), and Quang Nguyen (20 years old) are still too young. They are not yet at the peak of their careers, and the future is still wide open for these players, and the future remains bright for Vietnamese futsal.

The competitive and fair matches played by the Indonesian team against Japan and Iran may also give the Vietnamese futsal team more confidence, showing that we can now achieve great things when facing these opponents, if we are well-prepared.

The Vietnamese futsal team is rejuvenating its squad, ready to look towards the future (Photo: FAT).

Thailand has done it before, and now Indonesia has done it too, proving that Southeast Asian futsal holds a very high position in Asian futsal.

If the Vietnamese futsal team can compete for the number one position in Southeast Asia in the coming years, we will also be a force in Asia. Our main rivals in the future will still be Indonesia and Thailand.

On the Thai side, the team from the Land of Smiles seems to have weakened compared to their peak years about a decade ago. However, Thai futsal still has a very good foundation. They have a strong national league and a stable youth training program.

Vietnamese futsal is gradually moving towards those goals, with a generation of young players being prepared for major international tournaments in the near future, as demonstrated by the squad that recently concluded the Asian Championship. We believe in a bright future for the Vietnamese futsal team as these young players mature.

Furthermore, as mentioned, the opportunity to compete and gain experience against the two leading futsal nations in Asia, Indonesia and Thailand, in regional tournaments will be an excellent catalyst for the Vietnamese futsal team to improve its quality and reach greater heights.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/futsal-chau-a-2026-cu-xoay-truc-ngoan-muc-tu-dong-nam-a-20260208130217805.htm