U23 Vietnam's opponents: Rushing to prepare before the G hour

Defending champion U23 Malaysia, the biggest rival of U23 Vietnam in the upcoming SEA Games 27 group stage, has just received consecutive good news when two pillars, striker Izzaq Faris Ramlan and attacking midfielder Ashri Chuchu, have recovered from injury in time to return to the squad to prepare for the championship defense campaign.

The return of Izzaq Ramlan, the player who scored the decisive goal to help U23 Malaysia defeat U23 Thailand 2-1 in the group stage of SEA Games 26, will help coach Ong Kim Swee have more options in attack, in the context that two other attacking players, Wan Zack and Syahrul Azwari, have not yet returned from injury and will almost certainly be absent from the upcoming SEA Games 27.

In addition, attacking midfielder Ashri Chuchu will also return along with Swedish-born midfielder Junior Eldstal to help coach Ong Kim Swee forget the absence of key players Gary Steven Robbat, Fandi Othman and Nik Shahrul Azim.

After losing 0-1 to U23 Myanmar on November 8 in the BIDC Cup semi-finals, coach Ong Kim Swee's team has just lost two consecutive friendly matches against U23 Jordan with scores of 1-3 and 0-5. However, coach Ong Kim Swee believes that the timely returns of the above players will help U23 Malaysia regain confidence after a series of recent weak matches.

The absence of 22-year-old striker Khairul Nizam is a big loss for U23 Singapore at SEA Games 27. Photo: FAS

The young lions have just received some bad news when their number one striker Khairul Nizam will not be able to go to Myanmar to participate in the SEA Games with the Singapore U23 team due to a recurring injury. Nizam, with his experience of participating in the 25th and 26th SEA Games, was expected to be the "locomotive" of the Singapore U23 team in the campaign to conquer the SEA Games this year.

Coach Aide Iskandar himself also admitted that the absence of this 22-year-old striker is a big loss for U23 Singapore in their ambition to win one of the top two positions in Group A at the 27th SEA Games, even though this coach still has quite good strikers such as Shahfiq Ghani, Syafiq Zainal, Sahil Suhaimi and Iqbal Hussain.

The media of the Lion Island also assessed that the absence of the 22-year-old striker playing for the LionsXII Club will directly affect the ambition of U23 Singapore to go far at this year's SEA Games.

Another opponent of U23 Vietnam is the neighboring team U23 Laos, who are also in the process of completing their squad before leaving for Myanmar. Coach Kokichi Kimura and his team are currently participating in the MNC Cup in Indonesia and have played 2 matches with the results of winning U23 Maldives 2-1 and losing U23 Indonesia 0-3.

The last team and first opponent of U23 Vietnam at SEA Games 27, U23 Brunei, has just completed the last 2 practice matches before the most important tournament of the year in regional football, with the results of 1 win (1-0 against Sabah Juniors Club of Malaysia) and 1 loss (0-2 against U23 Thailand).

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