The new generation of Vietnamese football seen from the Panda Cup for the U22 team

(NLDO) - Panda Cup 2025 is a warm-up tournament for the Vietnam U22 team aiming for the goal: at least reaching the final of the 2025 SEA Games

From November 12 to 18, the U22 Vietnam team will participate in the international football tournament CFA Team China - Panda Cup 2025 taking place in Chengdu (Sichuan province, China).

This tournament is considered a preparation for the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals taking place in Saudi Arabia from January 6 to 24, 2026, with the participation of four U22 teams: Korea, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and host China. Of which, Korea and Vietnam are two of the 11 teams that finished first in the qualifying round, while Uzbekistan and China have tickets to the finals thanks to the 4 best second-placed teams in the group.

For the U22 Vietnam team, this is also a high-quality professional tournament and a very good experience environment towards the 2025 SEA Games held in Thailand in early December.

Important goals of U22 Vietnam

On January 5, 2025, right after convincingly winning the ASEAN Cup 2024, the goal of the Vietnamese football team in 2025 is to compete for a ticket to the final round of the Asian Cup 2027. On the contrary, the U22 Vietnam team has more goals, which are to defend the title of U23 Southeast Asian champion (July) and achieve the highest achievement at the SEA Games 2025 (December).

With the first goal, the boys who have or are about to enter the Vietnam national team have successfully defended their championship title to be crowned champion for the third consecutive time in the U23 Southeast Asian tournament after defeating the host team Indonesia 1-0 on July 29 with a goal by Cong Phuong. Before that, the Vietnamese team had defeated Laos 3-0, Cambodia 2-1 (group stage) and the Philippines 2-1 (semi-final).

It is noteworthy that all the authors of the goals in these matches, Khuat Van Khang, Nguyen Hieu Minh, Ly Duc, Dinh Bac, Xuan Bac, are all in the team participating in the Panda Cup 2025.

U22 Vietnam returns to China for the second time this year

To achieve this goal, during the FIFA Days in March, the team gathered and competed in the CFA Team China 2025 international football tournament organized by the Chinese Football Association in Jiangsu, and the Vietnam U22 team had three quality matches, drawing 1-1 with South Korea, 0-0 with Uzbekistan, and 1-1 with China to finish third overall.

With this rolling plan, the U23 Southeast Asian tournament taking place in July is not only to defend the championship title of the U22 Vietnam team but also to prepare for the 2026 U23 Asian qualifiers when Vietnam hosts the group with Vietnam in the qualifiers in September.

As a result, the Vietnamese team won all three matches against Bangladesh 2-0, Singapore 1-0, and Yemen 1-0 to top the group and officially win a ticket to the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals held in Saudi Arabia in January 2026.

And that is also the reason why during the FIFA Days in October, the U22 Vietnam team had two more friendly matches in the UAE with Qatar. Although they lost both matches with scores of 0-1 and 2-3, these were two high-quality matches that helped the U22 Vietnam players learn and gain many experiences.

A new generation is ready to take over Vietnamese football.

The concern of Vietnamese football in recent years is that at the U22 or U23 team levels, there are too few players playing in the V-League. This time, all 26 U22 Vietnam players are playing for clubs in the V-League 2025-2026. Specifically, Hai Phong, Ninh Binh, Becamex TP.HCM, SLNA, Hong Linh Ha Tinh each team has 1 player; HAGL, Cong An TP.HCM, Hanoi,SHB Da Nang (each team 2); The Cong Viettel, Cong An Hanoi, Dong A Thanh Hoa (each team 3) and PVF - CAND (4).

Thus, except for Nam Dinh Blue Steel, no player was selected for the Vietnam U22 team, the remaining 13/14 in V-League this season all contributed to the national U22 team.

Because the team's strength is spread across many teams, the V-League round 11 matches will only end on November 10 and then take a break for the players to focus on competing for the Vietnam national team in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers and the 2025 Panda Cup, so the U22 Vietnam team participating in the Panda Cup must be divided into three groups to travel to China.

Group 1 of U22 Vietnam departed from Hanoi on the morning of November 10, including the coaching staff and 12 players from PVF-CAND, The Cong Viettel , Becamex TP.HCM, SLNA, Da Nang Club and Hai Phong Club, completing round 11 of V-League 2025 - 2026.

The group of 8 players departed from Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

Group 2 departed from Ho Chi Minh City with 8 players from HAGL, Dong A Thanh Hoa, Ho Chi Minh City Police and Ninh Binh Club. Group 3 departed a day later, including 6 players from Hanoi Club, CAHN and Hong Linh Ha Tinh to compete in the V-League on the night of November 10.

Because on November 12, the U22 Vietnam team played against the Chinese team at 6:35 p.m. (Vietnam) on November 12 at the Shuangliu Stadium with a capacity of 26,000 seats, the Vietnam team only had one practice session on the afternoon of November 11.

Although there are some disadvantages, the advantage of the U22 Vietnam team is that the players are in good form while playing in the V-League. No one is injured and above all, the team has gathered the most complete and excellent force in Vietnamese football.

With the plan and goal for the whole year 2025, Panda Cup continues to be a training tournament for the U22 Vietnam team to improve and achieve the best performance at the 2025 SEA Games.

It can be said that 2025 is the year that Vietnamese football has a plan to prepare quite well for tournaments such as the 2026 U23 Asian Cup finals and the 2027 Asian Cup finals.

Vietnamese football has been forming a new generation ready to continue the brilliant generation of Vietnamese football that emerged from the 2018 U23 Asian Cup in Changzhou (China).

Source: https://nld.com.vn/the-he-moi-cua-bong-da-viet-nam-nhin-tu-panda-cup-co-tuyen-u22-viet-nam-196251111145803813.htm