Playing in front of the cheers of Can Tho fans in the final match against U21 Thailand at 6pm, Cong Phuong scored 2 consecutive goals to help U19 HAGL win 3-0.

The 2014 U21 International Championship is a worthy reward for Cong Phuong and his teammates after a year of hard work and constant effort in searching for titles. Photo: Duc Dong.

Cong Phuong and teammates

HAGL U19 continued to show extremely convincing performance to overcome Thailand U21 with a score of 3-0 to be crowned champion of the 2014 International U21 Football Championship, thereby bringing home the first title for the first batch of players from HAGL Arsenal JMG Academy. Like the familiar image in all previous matches, Coach Graechen's students entered the game with enthusiasm and quickly pushed Thailand U21 into a difficult defense. Continuous pressure was created by HAGL U19 players.

In the 7th minute, Xuan Truong fired a decisive long-range shot but the ball went over the crossbar. 6 minutes later, Cong Phuong confidently controlled the ball and broke through a large number of Thai defenders, forcing the opponent to commit a foul. At the penalty spot, Van Son made no mistake to open the score for U19 HAGL.

The goal that broke the deadlock further inspired the play of Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh and his teammates. The captain of U19 HAGL continuously put the U21 Thai defense on alert with his skillful dribbling.

Meanwhile, Van Toan, Thanh Tung and Hong Duy were also ready to explode after their accelerations, while the harmony of Tuan Anh and Xuan Truong in the midfield made U19 HAGL completely superior in terms of control of the game. If there was anything regrettable after the performance of Coach Graechen's students in the first half, it was the injury of central defender Dong Trieu in the 40th minute. Having just returned for only 2 matches, the pain of the player from Quang Nam showed signs of recurrence and he was forced to leave the field to make way for Australian K'sor.

Entering the second half, the overwhelming position of the U19 HAGL players continued to be maintained, leaving U21 Thailand with no choice but to use a fierce playing style with many fouls, causing the match to heat up after many collisions between players of the two teams. The pressure to find an equalizer forced U21 Thailand to push up their formation instead of a defensive strategy like in the first half, but their attacks were not too sharp and mainly relied on the advantage of physique and physical strength like many other opponents that U19 HAGL had faced in the tournament.

In the 74th minute, what many fans were waiting for came, Cong Phuong broke through with the ball, coordinated with Van Toan in one touch and then kicked the ball into the Thai net. Everything happened so perfectly that Can Tho stadium exploded with the cheers of the fans. With nothing left to lose, the Thai U21 players rushed to the HAGL U19 field, but were helpless against the excellent ball control of coach Graechen's students. If they had taken advantage of the opportunity better, Cong Phuong and Van Toan should have scored 2 or 3 more goals, not just one goal by the HAGL U19 captain to seal a 3-0 victory for coach Graechen's team. An excellent match by the HAGL U19 players, and they showed that they were completely worthy of being crowned champions at the 2014 International U21 Football Tournament.

Source Zing News; VnExpress.net