Vibrant on the surface, thoughtful and introspective on the depths.

In recent days, Vietnamese women's youth football has witnessed two notable events: short-term training camps abroad for the U15 team (in Australia) and the U17 team (in Japan).

For the U15 girls' team, the trip brought many new experiences as they became accustomed to a high intensity of matches, playing almost every day, sometimes even two matches a day. The results against the U15 state teams of Australia were wins, draws, and losses, but more importantly, the young players gained continuous "real-world" experience.

For the Vietnamese U17 women's team, the training camp in Japan will certainly be very beneficial before competing in the 2026 Women's Asian Cup finals (taking place in early May). Although their opponents are mainly high school teams, the professional quality is still very high, because Japan has a strong and well-invested school sports system.

These signals indicate that women's youth football is receiving greater attention from governing bodies. This is especially noteworthy given the national team's consecutive failures to meet expectations: losing the SEA Games championship to the Philippines, being eliminated from the group stage of the 2026 Asian Cup; at the youth level, the U19 team lost to Thailand's U19 team, and the U20 team suffered a heavy defeat against Thailand's U20 team at the 2026 U20 Asian Cup...

However, while overseas training trips are useful for youth development, they are not decisive for the foundation of Vietnamese women's football. The excitement from these trips is not enough to alleviate the persistent concerns about the training system.

In reality, the number of clubs maintaining well-structured youth programs is very limited; national women's championships at the U14-U15, U16-U17, and U18-U19 levels do not attract many participating teams, thus narrowing the opportunities for young players to compete. In addition, there are persistent difficulties regarding training funding, recruitment sources, and the genuine development of school sports...

Meanwhile, Thailand is making strong strides in developing women's football, with hope emerging from their organization of the national league, their school football development plan, and their efforts to host world-class youth tournaments... This is about solving the problem of developing the foundation of football, not just investing heavily in the national team.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/soi-dong-be-noi-tran-tro-chieu-sau-745920.html