AFF Cup 2024 rescheduled, Vietnam national team's plans disrupted.
The Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF) has decided to reschedule the 2024 AFF Cup, forcing the Vietnamese national team to change their preparation plans.
According to the original plan, the AFF Cup 2024 (formerly known as the ASEAN Championship) was scheduled to open on November 23, 2024. However, the AFF has just announced a change to the schedule of the region's premier football tournament. Accordingly, the AFF Cup 2024 will open on December 9, 2024 and conclude on January 5, 2025 (the old schedule was from November 23 to December 21, 2024).
The reason for this change is that AFF wants to avoid scheduling conflicts between the AFF Cup 2024 and the AFC Champions League Elite and AFC Champions League 2.
The AFC Champions League Elite group stage consists of three rounds of matches taking place from November 4th to December 4th. Meanwhile, in the AFC Champions League 2, most Southeast Asian countries have representatives participating.
With the AFF changing the schedule for the 2024 AFF Cup, the plans of the Vietnamese national team... This will need to be adjusted. Initially, the VFF planned to suspend the V-League 2024/2025 from November 11th to December 21st to allow the national team to compete in the AFF Cup 2024.
However, with the tournament being moved to December 9th, it is likely that the Vietnamese national team will not convene according to FIFA's schedule in November, allowing the V-League 2024/2025 to be played around that time. The Vietnamese national team is expected to start training on November 21st, giving them approximately two weeks to prepare for the AFF Cup 2024.
According to the draw for the 2024 AFF Cup, the Vietnamese national team is in the same group as Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Laos. Coach Kim Sang Sik and his team aim for the championship title.
