At 10:30 p.m. on April 17, U23 Vietnam will have their opening match at the 2024 U23 Asian Finals against U23 Kuwait. Coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his team strive to win 3 points, aiming to pass the group stage.
The 3-point goal is within reach
The 2024 U23 Asian Finals will be held in Qatar with the participation of 16 teams. The tournament is considered a qualifying round for the 2024 Paris Olympics in Asia. The top 3 teams will win direct tickets to France and the fourth-placed team will play a play-off with an African representative. In the Southeast Asia region, there are 4 teams participating: U23 Vietnam, U23 Thailand, U23 Indonesia and U23 Malaysia. The lucky draws put U23 Vietnam in Group D and faced off against the teams U23 Kuwait (April 17), U23 Malaysia (April 20) and U23 Uzbekistan (April 23).
After failures under coach Philippe Troussier, U23 Vietnam entered the tournament with a lot of pressure. The goal of coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his students is to pass the group stage and play well in each match. In the opening match, U23 Vietnam met a moderate opponent, U23 Kuwait. Victory is a must for coach Hoang Anh Tuan’s team to realize the goal of the tournament, before having to meet strong teams. than U23 Malaysia or U23 Uzbekistan. Sharing before the tournament, striker Bui Vi Hao of U23 Vietnam affirmed that the first two opponents, U23 Kuwait and U23 Malaysia, are within the same range as U23 Vietnam. Currently, the whole team is in very high spirit, determined to give the best performance to get favorable results in the first 2 matches.
Bui Vi Hao’s assertions are well-founded when U23 Vietnam is rated higher than its opponents. However, caution is what coach Hoang Anh Tuan offers when evaluating opponents, including U23 Kuwait.
“We have full information about Uzbekistan’s youth teams. This is also a team that Vietnam has encountered at many levels. Meanwhile, U23 Malaysia is a team in Southeast Asia so there is analysis. Certainly, Kuwait U23 has very little information, we tried to have statistics” – coach Hoang Anh Tuan said.
Also according to information from Kuwait’s football leadership, this team did not have good preparation before the tournament and many pillars such as Mubarak Al-Fanini, Bandar Al-Salama and Abdulaziz bin Naji were absent. In fact, the Kuwait Football Federation did not set any goals for the home team in the Asian U23 tournament. That shows that there are not many expectations for the strength of U23 Kuwait. However, U23 Kuwait is a mystery to U23 Vietnam despite its poor performance. In 2023, U23 Kuwait plays 10 matches, including 4 friendly matches, 6 official matches in the 2024 U23 Asian qualifiers and Asiad 19 men’s soccer. Notably, except for the 0-0 draw against U23 Saudi Arabia , the results of Kuwait U23 are not good. However, coach Hoang Anh Tuan’s team only needs to play hard to defeat this opponent.
Waiting for an explosion from the attack
The U23 Asian Finals is a tournament known as a playground for young players. It is not difficult to understand that teams bring U19 and U20 players to participate in the tournament and U23 Vietnam is no exception. According to statistics, Vietnam is the youngest team participating in the 2024 U23 Asian Finals. Coach Hoang Anh Tuan’s students only have an average age of 20, 21. In addition to the players who attended the U20 Asian Finals last year such as Khuat Van Khang, Ho Van Cuong, Vi Hao… U23 Vietnam still has many new players 18-19 years old such as Manh Hung, Nguyen Hoang, Dinh Bac… Although the squad is young, the players of U23 Vietnam Both men have rich experience competing at all levels.
U23 Vietnam aims to have 3 points against U23 Kuwait. Photo: Ngoc Tu.
In the list of 23 players selected by coach Hoang Anh Tuan, it can be affirmed that U23 Vietnam has a “tight” but relatively quality attack if looking at what the players have shown in recent times. This. 7 strikers including Van Truong, Vi Hao, Quoc Viet, Vo Nguyen Hoang, Van Tung, Minh Quang, Dinh Bac will have a lot of expectations from the school coach. Among them, Vi Hao, Quoc Viet, Nguyen Hoang, Dinh Bac are strikers who play regularly at the club combined with 5 players for the central midfield position, leading the play: Thai Son, Duc Viet, Duc Phu, Minh Khoa and Van Toan, bring diversity and promise of surprises in the playing style of U23 Vietnam at the 2024 U23 Asian Finals.
Meanwhile, in the defense line, there are 5 midfielders: Duy Cuong, Le Nguyen Hoang, Manh Hung, Ngoc Thang and Quang Thinh. This means that there will only be 2 central defenders who can replace the 3 central defenders who are scheduled to start in the tournament. A risky challenge for coach Hoang Anh Tuan, but it is also an appropriate choice for attacking play this season.
Obviously, Vietnam’s U23 force is quite uniform and many players have experience in different tournaments. This gives coach Hoang Anh Tuan peace of mind, but the problem of “molding” now belongs to the Khanh Hoa strategist, who needs to maximize the abilities of his students to perform well in the U23 Asian Finals.
