For coach Mai Duc Chung's team, the gold medal in women's football at the 32nd SEA Games will be a motivation for the whole team to aim for the goal of reaching the continental level, while the players of the U22 Vietnam men's team will gain valuable experience and gain more experience in the international arena.
Women's football reaches new heights
Although unable to successfully defend the "queen" title of AFF Cup 2022 in the Philippines, the Vietnamese women's team has regained its reputation with the gold medal at the 32nd SEA Games held in Cambodia. Despite being in the process of rejuvenating its squad, coach Mai Duc Chung's team still shows superiority in class compared to its Southeast Asian opponents. Not applying the policy of naturalizing players like Thailand, the Philippines or host Cambodia, the "diamond" Vietnamese girls have been trained in a resilient fighting spirit and solidarity to win the final victory.
Over the past 3 years, Vietnamese women's football has been aiming to reach the continental level. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team have created a historic milestone with a ticket to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup finals taking place in July in Australia and New Zealand. This achievement is enough to prove the 33rd world ranking and top 5 in Asia that Vietnamese women's football currently holds.
Under coach Mai Duc Chung, the Vietnamese women's team has achieved many successes in the international arena and received more attention from the public, attracting fans. Although it has produced many talents for the national team levels, domestic tournaments for women players are still not truly professional, have not achieved high professional quality and are considered to be the reason that hinders the development of national women's football.
After the success at the 32nd SEA Games, the Vietnamese women's team aims to achieve good results in the 2024 Olympic qualifiers in Asia. The results of the second qualifying round put the Vietnamese women's team in a not-so-heavy group, including Japan (FIFA rank 11), India (FIFA rank 61) and host Uzbekistan (FIFA rank 50). However, only the top two teams in the third qualifying round in Asia will be able to go to France, so getting a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics is an even more difficult challenge than Chung and his team participating in the 2023 World Cup.
According to experts, the potential of Vietnamese women's football is huge, the achievements in recent times are very valuable and proud of the image of Vietnamese women's football in the region and the world. Therefore, the Vietnam Football Federation needs to soon have a plan to invest and develop a fundamental basis for women's football, domestic football tournaments must be taken care of soon to operate professionally.
In particular, the development direction of top-level football also needs to quickly prepare a team of coaches to succeed Mr. Mai Duc Chung (who is old and will leave the team at the end of 2023). The national team's coaching staff must be prepared right now to have a timely succession and takeover after coach Mai Duc Chung officially "retires" so that the women's team does not lose form.
Vietnam women's team reaches continental level, while Vietnam U22 needs more challenges. Photo: QUANG LIEM
U22 Vietnam needs more time
The performance of U22 Vietnam at SEA Games 32 was not convincing enough for the home audience, if not disappointing. No one denies the ability of coach Philippe Troussier, but the French strategist's team needs more time to practice and get used to the innovation of modern tactical thinking.
The core of U22 Vietnam still has the talents of domestic football, but their lack of experience in competition makes them lack the courage and mentality when entering the international arena. Their professional level is not inferior to the football powerhouses in Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia, but the U22 Vietnam players are still vague when implementing the ball control and proactive attack style that Coach Troussier is building.
Many people are wondering why many current U22 players had a very stable mentality and played very confidently when wearing the U23 team jersey at the 2022 U23 Asian Cup finals (led by coach Gong Oh-kyun). Many young players of the U23 team at the 2022 U23 Asian Cup finals demonstrated a liberal and effective playing style. However, these same faces played ineffectively at the 32nd SEA Games and were explained by a lack of practical experience!? The competitive mentality of many U22 Vietnam players was not good, and the whole team did not reach their "peak performance" at the 32nd SEA Games. These limitations show that the advisory role and contribution of the Vietnamese coaching team to coach Troussier was not really effective.
Experts say that the current U22 Vietnam team will be more mature if given the opportunity to compete more regularly. It can be said that the failure of U22 Vietnam at SEA Games 32 will be a necessary lesson in the journey of development and reaching the pinnacle of Vietnamese youth football.
(*) See Lao Dong Newspaper from issue dated May 19
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