U22 China suffered a storm of injuries, losing a series of key players before the match with U22 Vietnam

The reason is that this team is facing a storm of injuries, and at the same time, there are conflicts with the schedule of other tournaments. The 2025 Panda Cup takes place in the context that most of the young players have just gone through a harsh season in League One (the Chinese First Division just ended on November 9), while many players have to spend time participating in men's football in the competition program of the National Sports Festival. Not stopping there, a series of injured players have not yet recovered and had to withdraw.

All of these factors made it so that yesterday afternoon, on the first day of the gathering, only 18 out of 30 people on the U22 China squad were present. A series of prominent faces of U22 China could not play against U22 Vietnam, including Liu Chengyu, Kuai Jiwen and Li Xinxiang. These are 3 bright young talents of Chinese football. They belong to the Shanghai team participating in the National Sports Festival. All 3 are under 20 years old but have played for teams from the U team to the Chinese national team.

Li Xinxiang is the number 1 striker of China U20

Meanwhile, Peng Xiao, Li Xinxiang and Liu Chengyu were injured and had to withdraw. Their ability to participate in the 2025 Panda Cup is in doubt. Not only that, Zhang Aihui just suffered a pain in his hand, which also made his chance to participate in the match with U22 Vietnam disappear.

With only 2/3 of the squad before the match against Vietnam, coach Antonio Puche will likely have to use a makeshift squad. That significantly affects the playing style of U22 China even though they are determined to beat U22 Vietnam. Remember, in the meeting last March, U22 China had to struggle to get a draw with U22 Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the visitors could not use their strongest lineup because many players joined the team late. Viktor Le, Van Truong, Dinh Bac, Minh Phuc... could not play because they arrived in China later than the team. They had to finish their late matches in round 11 of LPBank V.League 1 last Sunday night.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/u22-trung-quoc-gap-bao-chan-thuong-mat-hang-loat-tru-cot-truoc-gio-so-tai-voi-u22-viet-nam-post1795306.tpo