U22 Vietnam is eager to face the Asian 'giants' at Panda Cup 2025

On the afternoon of November 11 local time, Acting Head Coach Dinh Hong Vinh attended a press conference ahead of the 2025 Panda Cup international football tournament, taking place in Chengdu, Sichuan province (China).

At the beginning of the press conference, coach Dinh Hong Vinh, on behalf of the VFF and the Vietnam U22 team, thanked the Chinese Football Association (CFA) for their thoughtful and respectful reception of the entire team right after arriving in China to participate in the tournament.

Evaluating the professional quality of the Panda Cup 2025, Coach Dinh Hong Vinh affirmed that this is a highly competitive international tournament, gathering the continent's top youth teams. Besides U22 Vietnam and host China, the two guest teams Uzbekistan and Korea are also familiar opponents as they participated with U22 Vietnam in the international friendly tournament organized by CFA in March 2025.

“In that tournament, U22 Vietnam drew 1-1 with South Korea, 0-0 with Uzbekistan and 1-1 with China. Those matches really helped our young players mature a lot, contributing to creating a foundation for U22 Vietnam to win the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship, and also win all the 2026 Asian U23 Qualifiers,” Coach Dinh Hong Vinh shared.

Coach Dinh Hong Vinh also hopes that continuing to face strong opponents at the Panda Cup 2025 will provide an important stepping stone to help the Vietnam U22 team consolidate its strength and perfect its playing style, before entering two upcoming major goals: the 33rd SEA Games and the 2026 U23 Asian Cup finals.

Besides, Coach Dinh Hong Vinh also frankly admitted the difficulties in preparing for this tournament when many players had to compete in V.League 2025/26 so they could not gather early.

“We only had our full squad this afternoon when six players had just completed their playing duties for their home clubs. However, the team has been preparing throughout many training sessions since the end of 2024, so this is not a big obstacle. The whole team will try their best to compete well, achieve the highest professional efficiency, thereby creating a sprint for the 33rd SEA Games,” said coach Dinh Hong Vinh.

According to the plan, this afternoon (November 11), the U22 Vietnam team will start their first training session in Sichuan. Before that, right after settling in their accommodation, the coaching staff only organized muscle relaxation exercises in the hotel grounds to help the players recover after the long journey.