Make every effort for the goal of SEA Games 33

VHO - The Vietnamese women's Futsal team has just gathered in Ho Chi Minh City and started the journey to prepare for the women's Futsal event at the 33rd SEA Games, taking place in December in Thailand. Coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang and his team are making efforts to have thorough preparations for the goal of achieving the highest results at the regional congress.

The Vietnam Women's Futsal Team will try to prepare best for the 33rd SEA Games.

Prepare well

The national women's team will have more than 4 weeks to prepare for the 33rd SEA Games. After the domestic training period, the team will go to China for training, including two friendly matches with the Chinese women's Futsal team in early December. This is a familiar training location for Vietnamese girls before international tournaments and this time, the Vietnamese women's team is expected to have good preparation before going to Thailand to compete. The team's coaching staff said that this is a very important preparation period, deciding the success or failure when entering the official tournament, so the players must try their best, focus the most on training and competition.

At the 33rd SEA Games, the Vietnamese women's team was in the same group with Indonesia and Myanmar. With the group having 2 teams advancing to the semi-finals, the immediate goal set by the coaching staff is to win the group to avoid Thailand (most likely to win group A) in the semi-finals.

Evaluating the opponents in the same group, coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang said: “Indonesia is progressing rapidly, they played very well at the recent Asian Finals with many quality players and abundant physical strength. Myanmar is an opponent we beat in the Asian Finals qualifiers earlier this year, but they have many potential young players and will certainly bring many difficulties. This is a relatively balanced group and requires the team to have careful preparation.”

In the history of participating in the SEA Games, the Vietnamese women's team has won the silver medal 5 times in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2021. All 5 times, the team finished behind Thailand. The last time the women's Futsal was included in the competition program at the 31st SEA Games in 2021, the Vietnamese women's team had home field advantage but lost 1-2 to Thailand in the decisive match. However, in the most recent meeting in the final of the 2024 Southeast Asian tournament, coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang and his team successfully "avenged" the debt when they won 2-1 right on the opponent's field.

At the 33rd SEA Games, the Thai women's team (ranked 4th in the world ) is not only considered the number 1 candidate for the gold medal, but also plays at home. Therefore, the goal of winning the highest position of the Vietnamese women's team (ranked 11th in the world) will face a huge challenge. However, coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang affirmed: "The whole team is determined to reach the final and aim for the highest result at the 33rd SEA Games. We will try our best to prepare well to achieve this goal."

Continue to overcome difficulties

In this training session, coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang called up 20 players. The core force of the Vietnamese women's team is still the players who participated in the 2025 Asian Women's Futsal Championship. Two players from Ho Chi Minh City Club, Tran Thi Thuy Trang and K'Thua, joined the training late because they are preparing to compete in the Asian Women's Club Football Tournament. In addition, the team has added some young faces such as Tran Tuyet Mai, Lam Thi Xuan, Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong (Thai Son Nam Futsal Club, Ho Chi Minh City), Nguyen Huynh Nhu (Thong Nhat Sports Center) and Nguyen Phuong Anh ( Ninh Binh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism).

Coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang said: “The current squad is a combination of experience and youth. We will make adjustments to our playing style and speed, aiming for positive changes, not only for the upcoming SEA Games but also for the long-term goals of women’s Futsal.”

Compared to male players, female Futsal players are at a disadvantage as they have fewer opportunities to be called up to the national team, do not regularly participate in international tournaments, and do not have many places to train professionally and systematically. The current force of the national team is mainly Thai Son Nam players. In recent training sessions, the female Futsal player force is partly selected from 11-a-side players, so the source of human resources is more diverse to assemble and compete together. The current team force is a combination of experienced players and mostly young players with little international experience.

Despite the difficulties, coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang and his team have made great efforts to overcome them to achieve impressive achievements in recent times such as the 31st SEA Games silver medal, the 2024 Southeast Asian championship, passing the qualifying round and reaching the quarterfinals of the 2025 Asian Women's Futsal Championship. With the spirit of continuing to overcome difficulties and not backing down in the face of difficulties, the Vietnamese girls are determined to have the best preparation for the regional arena.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/the-thao/no-luc-het-suc-cho-muc-tieu-sea-games-33-178753.html