Vietnam U20 team gathers, Song Lam Nghe An only has 1 player participating
The Vietnam U20 team has gathered to prepare for the 2025 U20 Asian Qualifiers, in which Song Lam Nghe An club contributed only one name.
On the afternoon of August 15, the Vietnam U20 team entered its first training session at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center, in preparation for the 2025 Asian U20 Qualifiers.
This is a very important training period for the Vietnam U20 team to stabilize and perfect the squad and playing style to aim for the goal of competing for a ticket to the 2025 AFC U20 Finals.
However, many clubs at this time are also rushing to prepare for the 2024/25 national professional football season, leading to a situation where the U20 Vietnam team cannot gather all the best players, including some notable names from Song Lam Nghe An Club and some other clubs. Therefore, in this gathering, the Nghe team only has goalkeeper Nguyen Bao Ngoc present.
In addition, in the first training sessions, the Vietnam U20 team also did not have the service of 6 players who were called up to the national U22 team according to coach Kim Sang-sik's plan to review and evaluate the strength of the U21 players. These 6 players include goalkeeper Pham Dinh Hai, defenders Nguyen Bao Long, Dinh Quang Kiet, Mai Quoc Tu, midfielder Nguyen Le Phat and striker Trinh Long Vu.
Coach Hua Hien Vinh said that despite facing difficulties in terms of personnel, the coaching staff of the Vietnam U20 team will still make every effort to have the best preparation for the 2025 U20 Asian Qualifiers.
“After the U19 Southeast Asian tournament, the coaching staff met, learned from experience and made adjustments and changes to meet higher requirements. We did not change completely, we just created opportunities for the players to achieve high performance and make professional progress in the recent U21 national final round. During this training session, U20 Vietnam must consider sending players back to their home clubs to prepare for the upcoming V.League. This is also a difficulty, but we want to share with the club. I hope that when the 2025 U20 Asian qualifiers are near, the clubs will also share with U20 Vietnam so that we have the best force to compete,” said coach Hua Hien Vinh.
According to the plan, the U20 Vietnam team will have a week of training in Hanoi before going to Japan for training from August 23 to September 1. Here, U20 Vietnam will meet quality "blue troops" introduced by the Japan Football Federation. In addition, after the training session, U20 Vietnam is expected to have 2 internal matches with U20 Russia in Hanoi, before entering the 2025 U20 Asian Qualifiers.
The 2025 AFC U20 Championship qualifiers will feature 45 teams, divided into five groups of five and five groups of four. The 10 group winners and five best runners-up will qualify for the finals alongside host China.
In this qualifying round, the Vietnam U20 team is in Group A, along with Syria, Bhutan, Guam and Bangladesh. The matches in Group A are hosted by Vietnam and will take place at Lach Tray Stadium, Hai Phong from September 21 to September 29, 2024.