Shocked by the height of U23 Vietnam at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship

Against U23 Korea, U23 Vietnam played resiliently, even taking the lead. However, in the end, Coach Park Hang-seo's students lost 1-2. Of the 2 goals conceded by U23 Vietnam, 1 came from a disadvantage that is not easy to erase, which is the ability to compete for the ball in the air.

The average height of U23 Vietnam is far lower than U23 Australia and U23 Korea. Photo: IT.

In the second half, in a deadlock, U23 Korea often hung the ball into the U23 Vietnam penalty area to take advantage of the height of the strikers to launch headers. And in such a situation, they scored the goal to seal the score 2-1. In the 73rd minute, U23 Korea was awarded a free kick, Yoon Seung-won hung the ball awkwardly into the 16m50 box and Lee Keun-ho jumped high to head the ball back into the net of goalkeeper Tien Dung while the white shirt defenders were helpless.

Recalling 2 years ago, at the 2016 AFC U23 Championship, Vietnam U23 conceded 8 goals, 5 of which came from high balls. Obviously, high balls are our weak point, but it is too difficult to overcome that when the physique and height of Vietnamese players are much inferior to the opponents, especially the opponents from West Asia, North Asia and East Asia.

Look at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship, the average height of Vietnam U23 is 1m75. Meanwhile, Korea U23 and Australia U23 have an average height of 1m82. The number of players over 1m80 in Vietnam, Australia and Korea is 8, 13 and 14 respectively. As for Syria U23, there are no specific statistics, but their average height is also approximately 1m80.

In the next match, U23 Vietnam will face U23 Australia. Surely, having witnessed how tightly U23 Vietnam played against U23 Korea, coach Ante Milicic of U23 Australia will ask his players to use many high ball situations to solve the deadlock.