When the football 'quadruple' is not achieved?

This is an opportunity for Vietnamese football to realize its ambition of a historic "quadruple" but only achieved half of the important thing, the throne of the 2 U23+3 teams and the women's team, while the 2 Futsal teams could not surpass the Thais at this time.

In regional and continental Futsal, the Thais have long been a formidable force because the foundation of this sport has existed for a long time, continuously maintained and upgraded over time. Recently, although Indonesian and Vietnamese Futsal have made great strides, when facing the Thais, these two competing teams have not been able to overcome the most difficult moments to win. The Indonesian men's Futsal team once led the mighty Thais in the regional tournament final a few months ago, only needed to stand firm in the final seconds of the match to win the championship, but still let it slip away, which was extremely regrettable.

Meanwhile, at this SEA Games, the 3rd place - Bronze medal of Vietnam Men's Futsal and Silver medal of Vietnam Women's Futsal proved that they tried their best but were still helpless, although a draw against Thailand would bring us to the Gold medal, both men's and women's Futsal could not do it. Therefore, finding a foreign coach for Futsal is extremely necessary to gradually catch up and surpass the Thais, although at the World Cup, we have created the first indelible impressions through 2 participations.

U23 Vietnam won the gold medal in men's football at SEA Games 31. Photo: VnE

But with the U23 and Vietnamese women's teams, the story with the Thais has turned a new page. Coach Park Hang-seo and his team at the 31st SEA Games are not afraid of any opponent, do not choose the weak team in the semi-finals, are ready to fight the Thais to regain what they just lost at the recent AFF Cup. Of course, Thailand is truly a "perfect opponent" with many strengths in terms of force, technique, tactics, and the coach's leadership. The final match of the 31st SEA Games men's football is a "dream match" with the superiority in the ability to control the ball, push the opponent to the home field of the Thais, with high confidence in forcing the opponent to make mistakes for them to exploit as they have done for a long time.

But with a series of matches without conceding a goal since the beginning of the tournament, with careful preparation in terms of force, it was not difficult to realize that the opponent was exhausted from the second half of the match and launched a series of consecutive attacks that the opponent could not defend against. The situation where full-back Tuan Tai comfortably received the ball in a vast space on the left wing to cross accurately for Manh Dung to score proved that the Thais were not strong enough to keep up with the development of the match at that time. And leaving space for the opponent to exploit means defeat, and conceding a goal is something everyone knows and understands when remembering the famous saying "football is essentially the art of exploiting space" by master coach Pep Guardiola. The story of the Thais "not swallowing defeat" against U23 Vietnam this time will certainly lead to many exciting and thrilling things ahead, especially when the two teams meet again soon at the upcoming U23 Asian Cup to prove "which cat bites which mouse".

Huynh Nhu (number 9) and her team waved flags and ran around Cam Pha Stadium after the match on the evening of May 21. Photo:Ngoc Thanh

For the Vietnamese women's team, recently overcoming the Thais is no longer a surprise or new thing. The Philippine women's team unexpectedly entered the 2023 World Cup finals before the Vietnamese women's team, which could have made coach Mai Duc Chung and his team a bit worried, especially in the first minutes of the match when the home team unexpectedly fell behind at this SEA Games. But immediately, order was restored when Huynh Nhu and her teammates took the initiative to control the ball, played flexibly, limited the opponent's physical strength and took turns "firing" to turn the game around, making the opponent regret. Then, in the final match against the Thai women's team, coach Mai Duc Chung launched new weapons, new effectiveness from old cards.

It was the unexpected brilliance of Duong Thi Van in the central midfielder position, with a pass straight into the middle, opening up a wide opportunity for captain Huynh Nhu to do what needed to be done as an absolute trust for this "female general". It was not Thuy Dung who took a corner kick or a free kick, it was not full-back Bich Thuy who rose high and suddenly appeared in the opponent's penalty area, nor was it "veteran" Thuy Trang who charged left and right and kicked the ball well as she had done before, forcing the opponent to follow and be highly alert... From one surprise to another for the opponent, the Vietnamese women's team won the SEA Games gold medal for the third consecutive time, making the "tough" opponent Thailand look up, which is a clear fact.