Coach Mai Duc Chung: "The Vietnamese women's team aims to top Group E of the qualifying round"

The representative of the host group opened the press conference, Head Coach of the Vietnam Women's Team Mai Duc Chung said: "The Vietnam Women's Team aims to top Group E of the qualifying round. We will show high determination right from the opening match with Maldives. For the Vietnam Women's Team, UAE, Maldives and Guam are all opponents that we respect. They have all made significant progress. Towards this qualifying round, all 3 teams mentioned above have played friendly matches. The Vietnam Women's Team needs to be careful and make a lot of effort."

HLV Mai Đức Chung: "Đội tuyển nữ Việt Nam đặt mục tiêu đứng đầu bảng E của vòng loại" - Ảnh 1. — Coaches attend pre-match press conference

The captain of the Vietnam Women's Team commented that in this year's tournament, all teams have been invested in and have made rapid progress with many positive results. Not out of the trend, the Vietnam Women's Team itself has also made progress in the past 2 years.

Vietnam women's team enters final stage of preparation for Asian Cup 2026

In preparation for the 2026 Asian Cup qualifiers, the Vietnam Women's Team has had a training trip to Japan. This is a good environment for the women's team to develop.

"When training in Vietnam, it is difficult for us to have such quality players and we often practice with male teams. Therefore, training in an environment like Japan is very good for our development," said coach Mai Duc Chung.

Regarding the squad, Coach Mai Duc Chung explained the farewell to Vietnamese-American player Nam Mi: “I really hope that Vietnamese-American players will return to contribute to the Vietnam Women's Team. We are very happy that Nam Mi is training with the team, but due to professional issues, this tournament cannot be named. In this training session, the Vietnam Women's Team also has the services of some young players such as Minh Chuyen, Nguyen Thi Hoa or Thu Em.”

Meanwhile, Maldives coach Mohamed Athif said: “Our team is very happy to meet quality teams. We are ready to play with the highest effort. There is a little regret in the preparation for the qualifying round. But Maldives will try to contribute the best matches in this qualifying round. Meeting the Vietnamese women's team in the opening match is a difficulty. This will be the biggest challenge for Maldives in the qualifying round. We will try to prepare as much as possible. Hopefully the players will have the best performance.”

The coach of the UAE – a direct competitor of the Vietnam Women's Team said: “After football returned after Covid-19, I had the opportunity to work with my colleagues at the UAE Team. We are proud of what we have achieved. In this tournament, we will see what we can do, where we are and try our best. The selection of domestic players to play for the UAE Women's Team is partly due to cultural influence. In addition, the coaching staff and I want to create conditions for domestic players. These players will be the future of UAE women's football.”

For her part, Guam coach Kim Sherman modestly said: “The team wants to see how good they are through continental matches. Meeting teams in big tournaments will help develop Guam women's football in the future.”

In the 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualifying round, 34 teams are divided into 8 groups (2 groups of 5 teams and 6 groups of 4 teams). The teams compete in a round-robin format to determine the top 8 teams in each group to qualify for the finals, along with 4 teams that have already secured a place in the finals, namely Australia (host of the finals) and the 3 teams with the highest achievements from the 2022 season, including China, Japan and South Korea.

The six teams with the best results at the 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup will qualify for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Source: https://bvhttdl.gov.vn/hlv-mai-duc-chung-doi-tuyen-nu-viet-nam-dat-muc-tieu-dung-dau-bang-e-cua-vong-loai-20250628155219231.htm