Decoding Kyrgyzstan - the blue team of the Vietnamese team before the Asian Cup

At 6pm tomorrow (January 9), the Vietnamese team will play a friendly match against Kyrgyzstan. This is the only "test of fire" for coach Philippe Troussier and his team before entering the 2023 Asian Cup.

The Kyrgyzstan team is a very suitable opponent for Quang Hai and his teammates to test their skills before entering the big tournament. The Central Asian team is currently ranked 98th in the FIFA rankings, 4 places below the Vietnamese team.

The Kyrgyzstan national team is not among the top teams in Asia. The level of the team led by coach Stefan Tarkovic is shown in continental tournaments, when Kyrgyzstan has never entered the third qualifying round of the World Cup, and has only passed the group stage of the Asian Cup once (stopping at the round of 16 at the 2019 Asian Cup).

Giải mã đội Kyrgyzstan - quân xanh của đội tuyển Việt Nam trước thềm Asian Cup- Ảnh 1. — Van Truong and his teammates once faced U.23 Kyrgyzstan

At the Central Asian Championship, Kyrgyzstan has only won third place once (2006), and the rest of the time was eliminated in the group stage or did not qualify for the final round.

However, the Kyrgyz team is still a formidable opponent. With only 3 wins, 2 draws, and 8 losses in the last 13 matches, Kyrgyzstan defeated Oman (1-0) and Kuwait (3-1) in 2023. Both of Kyrgyzstan's "defeated opponents" were famous teams in West Asia.

That shows that, despite Kyrgyzstan's inconsistent form (previously they drew with Myanmar and lost to India), they are not an easy team to defeat. In the most recent match, Kyrgyzstan drew 1-1 with Syria - a regular in the third qualifying round of the World Cup.

Kyrgyzstan's squad is valued at 6.25 million euros, the lowest in the Asian Cup. However, this statistic is mainly because the majority of Kyrgyzstan's players (21 out of 33 players on the preliminary list) are playing in the domestic league, which is not highly rated. The remaining Kyrgyzstan's foreign players are currently playing in Russia, Uzbekistan, Oman and Türkiye.

The most prominent player in the Kyrgyzstan squad is defender Kayrat Zhyrgalbek, with 65 appearances for the national team, scoring 4 goals. Tamirlan Kozubaev (48 matches, 2 goals), Farkhat Musabekov (55 matches, 2 goals), Ernist Batyrkanov (27 matches, 2 goals) are the most experienced players in the squad coached by coach Tarkovic.

Kyrgyzstan's style of play, like most Central Asian teams such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Turkmenistan, is technical, with short passes and attacks mainly using short and medium-range passes.

In fact, some of Coach Troussier's players faced U.23 Kyrgyzstan in the Doha Cup 2023 qualifying match. This was the match in which U.23 Vietnam drew 0-0 after 90 minutes and lost on penalties.

In the match against Kyrgyzstan, the Vietnamese team will likely constantly change the lineup, testing young players and key players in parallel. Some new faces such as Nguyen Van Truong and Bui Vi Hao will have the opportunity to "score points" with coach Troussier.

The ball control style of play, progressing the ball with short passes will be thoroughly applied, to help the players gain more confidence, besides testing the effectiveness of the philosophy that Coach Troussier is trying to build.

The Vietnam team will strive to find victory as a confidence springboard for the 2023 Asian Cup.

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