Echoes of the match O.Vietnam - O.Uzbekistan 0-0: Optimistic signals

(Baonghean) - The 0-0 draw of the Vietnam Olympic team against the strong opponent Uzbekistan Olympic team has not satisfied many fans because the playing style of coach Miura and his team is not smooth and lacks sharp lines. However, according to many experts, U23 Vietnam is showing optimistic signs...

VFF President Le Hung Dung personally went to Thong Nhat Stadium to encourage the team. Photo: VTC News

Mr. Miura "hides his cards"?

The most optimistic person is Mr. Le Hung Dung, President of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF). Immediately after the friendly match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Uzbekistan ended, the VFF President immediately ran down to the field to congratulate Coach Miura and his team and expressed his satisfaction.

Mr. Dung said: “Compared to the match with U23 Indonesia, today U23 Vietnam had a relatively good match. Remember that Uzbekistan football is 60 places higher than Vietnam on the FIFA rankings. In Asia, they are also ranked 6th. Uzbekistan just had a 5-2 victory over U23 Thailand in the King's Cup 2015 - a football tournament celebrating the birthday of the Thai king, but today this team could not defeat U23 Vietnam. We drew in a winning position, if we were lucky, U23 Vietnam could have overcome this team from Europe”. At the same time, he expressed his belief that U23 Vietnam will continue to improve every day and reach their peak performance right when the qualifying round of the U23 Asian Football Championship takes place in Malaysia (from March 27 to March 31).

It can be said that the optimism of Mr. Le Hung Dung as well as many football experts is completely well-founded. Because in the last 3 friendly matches, Coach Miura has not yet revealed the best of the Vietnam U23 team. The Japanese coach knows that Malaysia is very good at "reading" opponents and always comes up with extremely effective countermeasures, while in the U23 Asia qualifiers, our team will face the host team Malaysia - a direct competitor for the ticket to the finals right in the first match, so this strategist is determined to "hide his cards" until the last minute. This tactic is certainly supported by many experts, because Vietnamese football has had to pay the price for many lessons in Southeast Asian tournaments, that is, playing enthusiastically and very well in training matches, but when entering the official tournament, they failed miserably. The reason is that our players have revealed all their strengths and weaknesses during the preparation process, so one of the extremely important factors, "surprise", is completely gone.

Before the match with U23 Uzbekistan, many people predicted that Coach Miura would send out the strongest force to test the ability of U23 Vietnam. However, in reality, the starting lineup of U23 Vietnam on the afternoon of March 14 did not have the faces that played well in the two previous matches such as: midfielder Nguyen Tuan Anh, center back Bui Tien Dung and names that have more or less made an impression such as: Thanh Binh, Ngoc Thang, Van Tien, Hoai An, Van Son, Hong Duy, Duc Luong...

The fact that the two teams agreed to allow 8 substitutions during the match and Coach Miura took full advantage of this substitution right proves that the main purpose of U23 Vietnam is to test different lineups and train the coordination and adaptability of the reserve players after being put on the field... At the same time, Coach Miura also wants to use this match to test the ability of some players to complete the already basically formed framework. With the nature of a friendly match and such a constantly changing lineup, the lack of stability and sharpness of U23 Vietnam's playing style is understandable.

A scene in the match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Uzbekistan. Photo from the Internet

HAGL trio

This was the first match that the striker pair from HAGL Club: Cong Phuong - Van Toan played together and played the full 90 minutes in the U23 team shirt. Although they did not score a goal, the good coordination of this duo caused many difficulties for the U23 Uzbekistan defense. Especially when coach Miura added midfielder Nguyen Tuan Anh to the field at the beginning of the second half, the midfield of U23 Vietnam was much smoother than the first half. The good coordination between the trio Tuan Anh - Cong Phuong - Van Toan helped the attack line continuously create storms in front of the away team's goal. It is a pity that the two strikers Van Toan and Cong Phuong have not yet completely regained their confidence and alertness to perform delicate handling and tricky finishing moves.

Because there is still very little time left until the qualifying round of the U23 Asian Cup takes place, it is not enough for young players from many different clubs to find a common voice, so it is likely that when entering the official matches, Coach Miura will use the HAGL players as the core in the midfield and forward lines. This framework is supported by a very good defense behind including the SLNA duo: Que Ngoc Hai - Manh Hung and Bui Tien Dung (Viettel), at the same time supplemented with quite prominent faces playing on the two wings such as: Huu Dung, Tan Tai, Thanh Binh, Hung Dung... will help U23 Vietnam have a combination of relatively complete pieces and be capable of overcoming U23 Malaysia to win a ticket to the final round of the U23 Asian Cup taking place next year.

Hoang Hao