Asian Cup 2019: Vietnam team is the youngest and has the lowest average height

According to the tournament organizing committee's regulations, coach Park Hang-seo and his colleagues at the 2019 Asian Cup must send a tentative list of 23 players 10 days before the tournament starts.

Doan Van Hau (number 5) is the youngest player of the Vietnamese national team participating in the Asian Cup. Photo: Trung Kien

After parting ways with Van Quyet (27 years old), Anh Duc (33 years old) after the AFF Cup 2018 and calling up some new faces such as: Ho Tan Tai (21 years old), Ngan Van Dai (26 years old), Tran Minh Vuong (23 years old), Nguyen Thanh Chung (21 years old), the average age of the Vietnam national team is exactly 23.13, becoming the youngest team participating in this Asian Cup. The Vietnam national team is also the only team that did not register any players over 30 years old in the list sent to AFC.

Among the players in the preliminary list of the Vietnam National Team, Trong Hoang is the oldest player (29) and the youngest is Doan Van Hau, the best young player of Vietnam 2018, who is only 19 years old this year. In case Trong Hoang does not recover from injury in time or another player has health problems, Dinh Thanh Binh will replace that position, then the average age of the Vietnam National Team will be pulled down even lower when the player from The Cong Club is only 20 years old this year.

Iraq is the second youngest team in the 2019 Asian Cup with an average age of 24, followed by India (24.8), Qatar (25), North Korea (25.3), Yemen (25.5) and Saudi Arabia (25.7). With an average age of 28.7, China is the oldest team in the 2019 Asian Cup.

According to this list, Vietnam is the team with an average height of only 174.7cm, the shortest in the tournament. It will be very difficult for the "dwarfs" when in the group stage, we will have to face the tallest team in the tournament, Iran. Possessing 15/23 players with a height of over 180cm, the Iranian team has an average height of 185cm.

“Thai Messi”, Chanathip Songkrasin is the shortest player participating in the 2019 Asian Cup. Photo: Gettyimages

However, the shortest player in the tournament is not in the Vietnamese team but is one of the brightest stars of the Thai team, Chanathip Songkrasin. “The Thai Messi” only has a modest height of 158cm. And the tallest player in the tournament is not a name of the Iranian team but goalkeeper Tawfiq Ali of the Palestinian team when this guy has a height of up to 198cm.

However, this is only a preliminary list of teams that must be submitted to the organizing committee. The official list will be finalized 6 hours before the tournament starts. At that time, the statistics will still change.