With a resounding victory over South Korea, Vietnam's futsal team aims for higher goals in Asia.

(Dan Tri Newspaper) - The Vietnamese futsal team achieved an outstanding 5-2 victory against South Korea in the final match of the 2024 Asian Futsal Championship qualifiers, thereby securing a place in the finals as the top team in Group D.

Before their final match in Mongolia, the Vietnamese team was still leading Group D thanks to a better goal difference than South Korea. Therefore, a draw in their direct confrontation with South Korea would be enough for Coach Diego Giustozzi's team to secure first place in the group. However, in futsal, the Vietnamese team is still considered stronger than South Korea. In their most recent encounter at the 2022 Asian Futsal Championship, the Vietnamese futsal team defeated the South Korean futsal team with a resounding 5-1 victory. Therefore, there is no reason for the Vietnamese futsal team to aim for a draw.

The Vietnamese futsal team won all 5 matches convincingly in the Asian qualifiers, Group D (Photo: VFF).

The events on the field showed the dominance of the Vietnamese futsal team over the South Korean team. Coach Giustozzi's players pressed forward immediately after the opening whistle, while South Korea played with a relatively low defensive line. The technical play and diverse attacking capabilities of the Vietnamese futsal team caused many difficulties for their opponents. However, it took Vietnam 14 minutes to find the opening goal. Receiving the ball from the right wing, Duong Ngoc Linh unleashed a beautiful one-touch shot that gave the South Korean goalkeeper no chance to save. The opening goal boosted the Vietnamese futsal team's morale. Just about two minutes later, the lead was doubled for Vietnam with a powerful shot from Gia Hung that went straight into the net. In the second half, South Korea pulled one back, but that didn't change the course of the game. Immediately afterwards, Coach Giustozzi's players continued to score more goals with their varied attacking style. Duong Ngoc Linh, Dinh Cong Vien, and Nguyen Minh Tri successively scored to increase the score to 5-1 for the Vietnamese futsal team. Only towards the end of the match did South Korea score a consolation goal, when the game was already decided. In the end, the Vietnamese futsal team won convincingly against South Korea 5-2. This result secured Vietnam's place in the 2024 Asian Futsal Championship finals as group winners, with a perfect 9 points from 3 matches, scoring 16 goals and conceding only 3. Meanwhile, South Korea also advanced as group runners-up. Currently, the four strongest teams in Asia are Iran, Japan, Uzbekistan, and Thailand. The Vietnamese futsal team is striving to reach the top 5 in the continent and continue its quest for a World Cup qualification spot. The success of Vietnamese futsal in recent years has been largely due to the direction and investment of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), with our two World Cup appearances (in 2016 and 2021), both times reaching the round of 16. The 9th Annual General Meeting of the VFF, taking place on October 15th, will be the time for the VFF Executive Committee to evaluate and review each task implemented in 2023, as well as to set goals and a roadmap for Vietnamese football in 2024.

Dantri.com.vn