Areas for improvement through statistics

Points to improve through statistics - photo 1

U23 Vietnam had a good start at the U23 Southeast Asian tournament but there are still many points to improve.

After the match, coach Kim Sang-sik noted: “Laos U23 defended tightly from the first minutes. After that, we scored thanks to the efforts of the players. The important thing is that we have a balance in defense and attack.”

This balance is partly reflected in the score, scoring 3 goals and conceding no goals. In addition, U23 Vietnam achieved 80% ball control time, made 686 passes (with an accuracy rate of up to 91%), compared to 124 passes (62%) and only received 2 shots from the opponent during the 90 minutes. In the opposite direction, captain Khuat Van Khang and his teammates launched a total of 13 shots towards the opponent's goal.

The balance in attack and defense partly comes from the difference in class, as Mr. Ha Hyeok-jun, head coach of the Laos U23 team, admitted: “As expected, Vietnam U23 is very strong. We tried our best and tried our best. From this tournament, Laos U23 will learn many lessons and try harder in the next tournaments. Laos football cannot be compared to Vietnam and Thailand yet.”

However, it is undeniable that coach Kim Sang-sik and his team have put in such an overwhelming effort to organize such a game. The difference in class is one thing, but many "upper" teams still face many difficulties when playing against "lower" teams because they are not used to playing like "upper" teams.

Moreover, the performance of Laos U23 showed progress in terms of tactics. Coach Ha Hyeok-jun planned to play a concrete defense from the beginning through the 5-4-1 formation and throughout the match, especially in the first half, the Lao players arranged a two-layer defense system properly.

In fact, U23 Vietnam had difficulty breaking through the "bunker" set up by the opponent. In the first 30 minutes of the match, Coach Kim Sang-sik's students held the ball up to 90% but only had 3 shots. Fortunately, we scored in the 19th minute, starting from a low cross from Nhat Minh, the ball lightly touched the Lao defender and then Van Khang kicked a tricky shot into the goal.

That was a rare "temporarily" effective cross of U23 Vietnam. Statistics show that U23 Vietnam only had 5 accurate crosses in the entire 90 minutes. The rate of accurate crosses was... 19%, meaning that on average, for every 5 crosses, only 1 time the ball found the right address.

In a deeper analysis, against opponents who choose a defensive style of play, passing the ball out to the wing and then crossing it inside is the easiest way to approach the opponent's goal. However, besides the effectiveness of the crosses, another problem of U23 Vietnam comes from the limping between the two wings. Most of U23 Vietnam's crosses come from corner kicks (9 corner kicks were awarded) or from attacks on the left wing.

On this wing, coach Kim Sang-sik has many quality players. That is the impressive speed of winger Phi Hoang, the ability to support the attack of left-sided center-back Nhat Minh. In addition, the two midfielders Thai Son and Van Truong and striker Dinh Bac also often move to the left wing to develop the ball. In contrast, the right wing has not left much of an impression.

The most notable mark of the players playing on the right side of the U23 Vietnam team was the double goal by the center back Hieu Minh. This player demonstrated his impressive finishing ability with a powerful header (minute 71) and a tricky shot (minute 83). Thanks to these two goals, Hieu Minh was voted the best player of the match. Both goals of this player born in 2004 came from corner kicks instead of advancing from the right wing.

Another point to mention is that Hieu Minh has a talent for attacking but has made fans gasp many times because of his bad handling when U23 Vietnam held the ball in their own half. Statistics show that U23 Vietnam made 11 tackles in this match, mainly from bad handling situations that allowed the opponent to steal the ball and counterattack.

Fortunately, U23 Laos is not qualified enough to exploit this weakness. Hieu Minh and his teammates need to focus and be more careful in the next journey, when facing strong opponents, especially naturalized strikers with high ability to fight independently, if U23 Vietnam wins a ticket to the next round.

With 3 points against U23 Laos, U23 Vietnam only needs to win 1 point in the match against U23 Cambodia in the last match of Group B to win a ticket to the next round. According to the match schedule announced by the Southeast Asian Football Federation, the team that finishes first in Group B will meet the team that finishes first in Group C or second in Group A (if the second in Group A is the second team with the best record).

According to the ranking of the second-placed teams, it is almost certain that the ticket to the semi-finals for the second-placed team with the best record will belong to group A because after deducting the points from the team considered "underdog" U23 Brunei, there are at least 2 teams in this group, U23 Indonesia and U23 Philippines, with 3 points.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/the-thao/nhung-diem-can-cai-thien-qua-so-lieu-thong-ke-154322.html