Vietnam team easily defeated U23 Bahrain 3-0

By keeping captain Tan Tai and familiar faces such as Phuoc Tu, Minh Tuan, Hai Anh... on the bench, coach Miura shows that he is still making the most of every friendly match opportunity to evaluate the quality of the players in the 30-man list in hand.

Although not entering the match with the strongest lineup, the Vietnamese team still easily dominated the game against a Bahrain U23 team that was weaker in every aspect. After several consecutive attacks by Anh Duc and Cong Vinh, the goal came to Coach Miura's students in the 11th minute. From Thanh Luong's corner kick, Anh Duc jumped high and powerfully headed the ball to open the score.

Anh Duc opened the score with a powerful header. Photo: Tung Le.

The early goal made the Vietnamese players show signs of complacency. In the 17th minute, from a not-so-dangerous attack by U23 Bahrain, center-back Tien Thanh committed a foul in the penalty area, leading to a penalty. Fortunately, Alaswad's penalty was blocked by goalkeeper Thanh Binh, and in the subsequent header by the U23 Bahrain player, the ball hit the crossbar instead of going into the net.

In the second half, Coach Miura sent in three players, Van Quyet, Thanh Trung and Hai Anh, to replace Trong Hoang, Anh Duc and Cong Vinh. The Vietnamese team maintained pressure on the opposite side of the field, forcing U23 Bahrain to struggle to defend. However, due to inaccurate finishing, the second goal still did not come to Coach Miura's players. After the above somewhat negligent situation, Coach Miura's players played with more concentration and continuously created many dangerous situations towards the U23 Bahrain goal. Both Cong Vinh, Anh Duc and Thanh Luong had opportunities to widen the gap in the score but all unfortunately missed.

Despite many attacks without scoring, the Vietnamese team almost paid the price in the 56th minute when Aliisa was in a one-on-one position but his shot went wide of goalkeeper Thanh Binh's goal.

Showing no signs of slowing down after re-entering the game, Coach Miura's players continued to push up their attacking formation. In the 71st minute, Thanh Trung had the ball in a favorable position in front of the opponent's goal, but his shot hit the Bahrain U23 goalkeeper, then the ball bounced to Thanh Luong's feet, but unfortunately, the Hanoi T&T midfielder's rebound shot sent the ball over the bar. In the 75th minute, Hai Anh quickly swooped in to cushion the ball, but the ball hit the post. In the 62nd minute, a rare incident occurred when Thong Nhat Stadium lost power, causing the match to be interrupted. The cause was said to be heavy rain that started at the end of the first half, causing a power outage. It took about 20 minutes for the power outage to be resolved so that players from both sides could continue playing.

After two unfortunate misses, in the 79th minute, Van Quyet received the ball in an extremely open position in front of the U23 Bahrain goal after a pass from Hai Anh. The striker wearing the number 10 shirt had no difficulty in doubling the gap for the Vietnamese team.

Not only that, the West Asian team also had to accept a third goal after Thanh Trung scored in the fourth minute of extra time. The match ended with a 3-0 victory for coach Miura and his team. In the remaining minutes, coach Miura continued to send Huy Toan and Thanh Hien onto the field to create more opportunities for the players to compete. Although the Vietnamese team's lineup had a big change, leading to the pressure no longer being maintained regularly, U23 Bahrain still could not find an honorary goal.