Asian Cup: Vietnamese football has a chance with the wild card
(Baonghean.vn) - If they defeat the Yemen team in the final match, the Vietnam team will certainly win the 3rd place in Group D. However, to be in the group of 4 best 3rd place teams, Coach Park Hang-seo and his team will have to wait for the results in the remaining groups.
In the past, many Vietnamese football teams have been in the same situation as they are now and have achieved their goals. Specifically, at the 16th Asian Games held in China in 2010, the Vietnamese Olympic team was in the same group with the Iranian Olympic team, the Turkmenistan Olympic team and the Bahrain Olympic team.
In the opening match, Vietnam Olympic team defeated Bahrain Olympic team with a score of 3-1. Unfortunately, in the next two matches against Turkmenistan Olympic team and Iran Olympic team, coach Phan Thanh Hung and his team lost with scores of 2-6 and 0-1 respectively. However, Vietnam Olympic team still won a ticket to the round of 16 when becoming one of the 4 best third-placed teams.
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| The chance of the Vietnam team passing the group stage is still quite high. Photo: bbc.com |
Nearly 4 years ago, in the 2016 U23 Asian qualifiers, held in Malaysia (March 2015), U23 Vietnam also won a wild card ticket to the finals. In a group with U23 Japan, U23 Malaysia and U23 Macau, coach Miura and his team excellently finished in 2nd place in the group (after U23 Japan) and became one of the 5 best second-placed teams.
The same is true for the 2018 AFC U23 Championship qualifiers, where Vietnam U23 were in the same group with South Korea U23, East Timor U23 and Macau U23. After 3 matches, Nguyen Cong Phuong and his teammates earned 6 points, with 2 wins against East Timor U23 (4-0) and Macau U23 (8-1), and 1 loss against South Korea U23 (1-2). That result helped Vietnam U23 become one of the 6 best second-placed teams to qualify for the finals.
In fact, at this Asian Cup, the Vietnam team only participated thanks to the victory in the play-off round. According to AFC regulations, the 12 teams participating in the final qualifying round of the 2018 World Cup will join the 12 teams that passed the play-off round (the play-off round has 24 teams divided into 6 groups), to gather 24 teams to compete in the 2019 Asian Cup Finals.
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| Yemen (red) is not a highly rated opponent. Photo: sports.yahoo.com |
In the play-off round, the Vietnamese team was in the same group with the Jordan team, the Cambodia team and the Afghanistan team. In the end, Coach Park Hang-seo and his team won 2nd place (after the Jordan team) and officially entered the tournament held in the UAE. This is the 2nd time the Vietnamese team has participated in the Asian Cup finals. The last time was at the 2007 Asian Cup, as 1 of 4 host teams.
Therefore, many people believe that Coach Park Hang-seo and his team will win the right to play in the round of 16 of the 2019 Asian Cup, as one of the best third-placed teams. Because in the past, Vietnamese football often had a fate with the wildcard tickets. The immediate task of Que Ngoc Hai and his teammates is to defeat the Yemen team with the biggest gap, the better.
