SLNA's best defense in V.League and the mission to 'block the way' of champion Hanoi

The 5-2 victory over Viettel helped Hanoi FC move closer to the 2019 V.League championship. The defending champions are 7 points ahead of Ho Chi Minh City FC with only 3 rounds left in the season. If they beat SLNA, coach Chu Dinh Nghiem and his team will officially become this season's champions 2 rounds early.

Meanwhile, from a team that was considered capable of competing for the championship with Hanoi, SLNA now has only 33 points, ranked 4th on the rankings, and is in dire need of points to maintain the ability to compete for medals, saving a struggling season.

In the first leg, Hanoi FC brought sadness to Nguyen Manh and his teammates at Hang Day. Photo: HNFC

Remember in the first leg, without both Phan Van Duc and Pham Xuan Manh, SLNA was still full of spirit as a guest at Hang Day, but then collapsed and lost with a score of 0-4.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the team's founding, that humiliating defeat was no different from making the fate between the two teams even more complicated. This time returning to Vinh Stadium to welcome their opponent, SLNA showed a completely different appearance.

SLNA has just gone through 5 quite successful matches, 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. In which, the victories of coach Duc Thang and his team all had big scores such as 3-1, 4-1 and 5-1 respectively against Viettel, Khanh Hoa and B. Binh Duong. SLNA's only loss in the recent series of matches was due to the unlucky red card in the match against TP HCM and that was also the match that Vinicius could not participate in.

Compared to the first leg, SLNA's attack line improved a lot with the return of Pham Xuan Manh after injury and foreign player Joel Vinicius, the striker who scored a total of 11 goals in V.League 2019 and 5 goals for SLNA after 9 matches. However, with 30 goals, SLNA could not compete with the opponent who scored 55 goals, an average of 2.4 goals/match.

SLNA's defense is not easy to defeat with 3 former national players and 1 European foreign player. Photo: VPF

In terms of defense, SLNA's defense is still highly rated with goalkeeper Nguyen Manh, the duo Van Khanh - Damir Memovic and two former players Dinh Hoang - Dinh Dong, the number of goals conceded is 23, still better than Hanoi's 24.

Looking at the history of confrontation, Hanoi is a formidable opponent and is superior in class to SLNA. The Nghe team has only 4 wins, 10 draws and 9 losses in a total of 23 confrontations since Mr. Hien's team was promoted. At Vinh Stadium, SLNA has only 2 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses.

Despite being the away team, Hanoi is dominating with a squad consisting of many national team players, a solid defense and an attack line with the best foreign players in V.League. In the top scorers list, striker Pape Omar has 14 goals, Van Quyet has 9 goals and Quang Hai has 8 goals.

The only disadvantage of Hanoi is that Hanoi has just gone through intense matches at the AFC Cup 2019 and many players show signs of being overloaded after performing their duties with the national team. Meanwhile, SLNA is missing two players with the best attacking ability, Van Duc and Tuan Tai.

Joel Vinicius has scored 5 goals for SLNA in recent matches. Photo: Trung Kien

Remember that in the past 23 matches, while SLNA has experienced 6 losses, Hanoi has only had to accept defeat twice. Obviously, the match at Vinh Stadium in round 24 will be a promising and fierce confrontation between the team with the strongest attack and the most solid defense in V.League 2019.

The Nghe An spirit in the squad is the strength of SLNA, but mentality is also the weakness of the Nghe team. Therefore, the recent victories will certainly create a very good psychological momentum for Nguyen Manh and his teammates.

In the recent national team training sessions, there were no SLNA players. This has somewhat touched the pride of the Nghe An team and this will certainly be the motivation for the Nghe An players to be determined to play a decisive match. It will be difficult for SLNA to defeat Hanoi but it will not be easy for Mr. Hien's team to win the championship early right at Vinh Stadium./.

EXPECTED LINEUP

SLNA:TM Nguyen Manh, Dinh Hoang, Van Khanh, Damir Memovic, Dinh Dong, Xuan Thang, Ngoc Toan, Khac Ngoc, Xuan Manh, Michael Olaha, Joel Vinicius.

Hanoi:TM Van Cong, Van Kien, Duy Manh, Thanh Chung, Van Dung, Kebe, Moses, Hung Dung, Quang Hai, Van Quyet, Pape Omar.

Prediction: 2-2

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