Great victory over East Timor, U23 Vietnam enters the semi-finals

(Baonghean.vn) - U23 Vietnam had an easy win against U23 East Timor to enter the semi-finals of men's football at the 28th Sea Games.

Before this match, U23 Vietnam had 3 consecutive victories in men's football at the 28th Sea Games, (6-0, 5-1, 1-0) against U23 Brunei, U23 Malaysia, U23 Laos respectively. Coach Toshiya Miura's team has 9 points and is temporarily ranked second in Group B after U23 Thailand (12 points), but has one match left to play. Just one more draw and U23 Vietnam will go straight to the semi-finals with U23 Thailand.

U23 players rejoice after the overwhelming victory over U23 East Timor (photo VNE)

The opponent of the red team today is U23 East Timor, who has 3 points after 3 matches and is temporarily ranked 3rd. If U23 East Timor has 6 points after the remaining two matches and Vietnam loses to U23 Thailand in the last match, East Timor will be ranked above Vietnam in Group B (based on the head-to-head index), to be present in the semi-finals.

Coach Miura always has calculations for long-term moves in this tournament, so the criteria of player rotation has always been applied by him in the past matches. In this match, Coach Miura deployed a completely different lineup compared to the past 3 matches. Cong Phuong played on the bench, Phi Son and Mac Hong Quan were placed in the highest position on the attack line. Two players Ngoc Thang and Huy Toan were placed on the two wings, Duy Manh and Huy Hung played in the middle of the field where the 4-man forward line of U23 Vietnam. The defense line was arranged quite differently from the speculation of the fans, the two strikers were Ngoc Thinh and Tien Dung, the two full-backs were Ngoc Hai and Duc Huy.

On the other side, coach Fabio Magrao also put on the field right from the start with the strongest players with names naturalized from Portugal and Brazil such as midfielder Barbosa De Almeida, striker Jairo Neto...

Returning to the main developments of this match, U23 Vietnam actively controlled the ball, played offensively from the first minutes, putting strong pressure on the defense of East Timor. The ball was continuously developed from the two wings where the wingers Huy Toan, Ngoc Thang, and fullback Ngoc Hai were. These players had favorable passes to Phi Son, with the ability to choose positions and maneuver well, this player created many surprises in the goal of East Timor. In the 12th minute, from a cross from the right wing by Que Ngoc Hai, Phi Son had a very tricky header to defeat the goalkeeper of East Timor, opening the score 1-0 for the U23 Vietnam team.

After the goal was scored, our team continued to besiege the East Timorese goal. In the 22nd minute, Ngoc Thang skillfully dribbled the ball in the 16m50 area and fired a powerful and dangerous shot, but unfortunately the ball hit the crossbar of the East Timorese goal and went out. Then in the 35th minute, another opportunity was created by Phi Son, the player kicked the ball with the inside of his right foot and the ball went just wide of the post.

Phi Son played very well in this match (photo: Bongdaplus)

Phi Son played quite prominently in the first half, with many technical ball handling moves that made it difficult for the East Timor defense to block. In addition, in the first half, names like Ngoc Thang, Huy Toan, Mac Hong Quan had quite good coordination with extremely spontaneous handling moves. Although creating many scoring opportunities, the strikers of U23 Vietnam were unlucky, the score in the first half only stopped at the minimum difference in our favor.

Although East Timor tried very hard in the first half, there were not many passes that could surprise the Vietnamese defense. Striker Jairo Neto played very hard, but this player was quite alone in the East Timor attack, there were no players capable of coordinating with him to create a breakthrough. The East Timor defense played very poorly, when many times they could not keep up with the attacking players of U23 Vietnam.

Right in the first minutes of the second half, from a cross ball on the right wing by Que Ngoc Hai (defender from Song Lam Nghe An Club), Mac Hong Quan headed the ball neatly to raise the score to 2-0 for the Vietnamese team. In the 52nd minute, Phi Son - "Vietnam's Ronaldo" had another shot that missed the East Timor goal by a hair. In the 56th minute, Que Ngoc Hai scored the third goal for the Vietnamese team. From a cross ball on the right wing, the ball hit the instep of his foot and flew straight into the East Timor net. A very good match for Que Ngoc Hai, he scored a goal and passed the ball to his teammate to score.

Impressive performance of Que Ngoc Hai (photo: Bongdaplus)

In the 62nd minute, the score was raised to 4-0 for U23 Vietnam. Thanh Binh's shot bounced off Huy Toan, who was there in time to raise the score to 4-0 for our team. After the goal, U23 Vietnam proactively slowed down the attack, played solidly and waited for the referee's final whistle.

Winning 4-0 and having no players injured, coach Miura and his team had a very successful match against East Timor.

With this resounding victory, U23 Vietnam has regained the top spot in the group from U23 Thailand and has certainly passed the group stage to be present in the semi-finals. In the final match, U23 Vietnam will meet U23 Thailand to compete for the top spot in Group B.

Duc Anh