Chinese media: We lost to U22 Vietnam because of lack of troops

TPO - Many major Chinese newspapers have reacted after the 0-1 loss to U22 Vietnam. And among the reasons given, all emphasized that the home team had difficulty with its squad.

In the first match of Panda Cup 2025, U22 Vietnam defeated U22 China 1-0 thanks to a brilliant moment in the 80th minute by Minh Phuc. The CAHN full-back is showing his scoring talent with 2 consecutive goals in his last 2 appearances (for the club and the U22 team).

This victory helps U22 Vietnam have a good start in the Four Nations tournament in China and more importantly, it helps the team continue to sow sorrow for their opponents, who have often received bitter fruit from the U22 generation of Vietnam in the past 5 years (2 losses, 1 draw and 1 win).

The home media has just evaluated this match. On one hand, they acknowledged the efforts of U22 China, on the other hand, many newspapers also highlighted the reason for the defeat because their team was missing too many options in the squad.

The Paper wrote: “In terms of the starting lineup, perhaps due to a lack of personnel, Coach Antonio deployed a relatively safe 5-3-2 formation, maintaining a moderate pace of attack. In the first half, we controlled the match well but were not sharp in attack. In the second half, China continued to dominate with opportunities in the 54th and 71st minutes. However, while the offense did not perform well, the defense made serious mistakes at the end of the match, causing the home team to lose 0-1.”

U22 China dominated in ball control time

Page 163.com believes that if not talking about the result, the performance of U22 China against U22 Vietnam was impressive, especially in the context of the team missing 12 players for many different reasons.

“Throughout the match, China U22 controlled the ball 53% of the time and had 6 shots, giving them a statistical advantage, but unfortunately, the result was not as expected. But what the team showed still brought a lot of hope. The fact that many fans stayed in the stadium after the match, chanting the names of the players to encourage the young men to continue their efforts is proof,” the publication commented.

Meanwhile, Sina newspaper affirmed that the main reason for the failure was that many key players of U22 China could not participate in the match due to injury, as well as conflicts in the match schedule.

“Our squad is depleted. The team’s key offensive players are all absent due to injury. Other important players like Kuai Jiwen and Liu Chengyu… are busy participating in the National Games and cannot play. Any international tournament is important, yet they insist on arranging domestic matches that trample on the team’s schedule. And in the end, the U22 team has to suffer the consequences,” Sina wrote.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/truyen-thong-trung-quoc-chung-ta-thua-u22-viet-nam-vi-thieu-quan-post1795709.tpo