Coach Philippe Troussier is satisfied with the spirit of the Vietnamese team.

Coach Troussier and his team were empty-handed at the 2023 Asian Cup, losing all three matches. However, in the final match against Iraq, the Vietnamese players played with great effort.

Looking back at the past journey at the Asian Cup, coach Troussier said he was still very satisfied with the performance of the whole team: "The goal of the Vietnam Football Federation is to create new energy to confront the top teams. It is not easy for Vietnam to confront the top 10 opponents in Asia. I had to choose a new approach. I chose players who are not afraid, dare to play with ball control. We are still making progress.

Even though we lost, I still see progress in the young players. At the moment, we have been eliminated, but our spirit and attitude are good, so I am still satisfied."

Speaking about his players' performance in this match, Mr. Troussier said: "The team's goal is still to play their best even though they have been eliminated. I asked the players to fight their best for the country and continue to pursue their philosophy. Today, they did it. I am satisfied with the performance and efforts of the players.

Vietnam played very proactively in the first half. In the second half, it was much more difficult for us because we were short of players, but we still maintained our organization and discipline in defense. Not only that, the team always proactively sought and exploited even the smallest opportunities to score another goal.

The turning point of the match came from Van Khang's red card, talking about this, the French strategist said: ''Regarding Van Khang's red card, both players jumped up. Khang did not intentionally commit a foul, he was just trying to get the ball. But the referee showed the card, so the whole team had to accept it. I think the whole team played well before, but the red card somewhat affected the players.

You know, when we play with one less player, it's very difficult for us to execute what we want. That's the reason for the negative result in today's match."

Entering the final match of Group D, the Vietnamese team fought extremely tenaciously against the Iraqi team, even taking the lead. The match became unpredictable after Khuat Van Khang received a red card at the end of the first half, not to mention the consecutive goals that appeared.

Evaluating the match and the journey of the Vietnamese team in the Asian Cup, the captain of the Vietnamese team shared: "From the beginning, we knew this would be a difficult match. In theory, Iraq was better than us. In my strategy, I also wanted to cause them a lot of trouble, but unfortunately the final result was not successful.

However, today, although our chances of advancing were over, our players kept the same spirit as when we played against Indonesia. We scored two goals and defended continuously for an hour with only 10 men on the field. The players really prepared seriously for this match. Unfortunately, we lost in the last minutes. But we had to pay for our mistakes.

In this tournament, I think the team was unlucky when playing against Japan and Iraq. This was a difficult group. But in the end, I think the team left the tournament with a good image, a positive image,'' Mr. Troussier concluded./.