The 2023 Asian Cup kicks off on January 12. The Vietnamese team will begin competing in Group D on January 14. Many fans are wondering why the tournament is taking place in 2024 but is still called the 2023 Asian Cup.
According to Reuters, the Asian Cup being held in January 2024 was proposed by Qatar. This West Asian country was awarded the right to host the tournament in October 2022. Previously, China gave up the right to host the tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation.
Qatar proposed to hold the Asian Cup in winter, because the summer weather in this region is too hot, not suitable for organizing tournaments. This is also the reason they hosted the 2022 World Cup at the end of the year. In 2019, the Asian Cup also took place at the beginning of the year.
Vietnam team will participate in Asian Cup 2023 from January 14.
The tournament is scheduled to take place in January and February 2024. However, the tournament name is still associated with 2023 to synchronize with promotional and sponsorship activities... In addition, linking the name of the Asian Cup this time with the 2023 milestone is also to avoid creating disruption to the 4-year cycle of the tournament schedule.
This is not strange to football fans around the world . During the COVID-19 pandemic, many tournaments in 2020 were postponed and had to be moved to 2021 such as EURO and Olympics. However, the organizing committee decided to keep the name EURO 2020 and Olympics 2020.
The 2023 Asian Cup will feature 24 teams. Vietnam is in Group D with Japan, Indonesia and Iraq. Coach Philippe Troussier and his team will face the three opponents on January 14, January 19 and January 24.
According to the format of the 24-team version, the group winners and runners-up, along with the four third-placed teams with the best results, will advance to the round of 16. It will be difficult for the Vietnamese team to compete for the top two positions with Japan and Iraq - two teams in the top 10 strongest teams in Asia according to the FIFA rankings.
The Vietnamese team has participated in the Asian Cup twice before - both times reaching the quarter-finals.
Minh Anh
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