U19 Japan 3-1 U19 Vietnam: Learn to finish, learn to defend

Those are two key issues that U19 Vietnam must improve. We have a creative and technically excellent Cong Phuong, a fighting spirit full of effort but that is not enough for success.

Bad finishing

Compared to the crushing defeat against U19 Korea, U19 Vietnam created more dangerous and sharper attacks in this match. Unfortunately, we only scored 1 goal because of poor finishing. Thanh Tung and Xuan Hung had scoring opportunities but their finishing was not strong enough, accurate, sharp and delicate enough to score.

It is a pity because while waiting for the U19 Vietnam defense to play well and be lucky all match to keep a clean sheet is unrealistic, scoring (at least 1 goal) is completely possible for us this afternoon. If Mr. Guillaume Graechen had a good striker, perhaps U19 Vietnam would have scored more than 1 goal.

Cong Phuong shines

Cong Phuong played well but that was not enough.

It cannot be said to be brilliant, but clearly Cong Phuong played much better in this match than the match against U19 Korea. Phuong had both his technical breakthroughs and delicate passes to his teammates. Unfortunately, Cong Phuong's teammates failed to take advantage of the opportunities created.

The reason why Cong Phuong was able to show off his talent was partly because U19 Japan played extremely fair-play. Cong Phuong was not fouled, pressed too closely and blocked too tightly like in the match against U19 Korea.

Defensive errors

U19 Vietnam once again lost to U19 Japan, albeit with a minimal difference. Similar to the match against U19 Korea, Hong Duy's left-back position was exploited in this match and this is really a fatal weakness of U19 Vietnam. There were no less than 5 dangerous shots of U19 Japan originating from Hong Duy's left wing and we kept a clean sheet after the first half partly thanks to luck.

Sometimes No. 7 was not present at the hot spot. Sometimes Hong Duy failed in the one-on-one dispute, sometimes he lost the ball dangerously. The post denied Japan U19 a goal twice. The ball was lucky to find Minh Long's position (first half) after a close-range header in an open position by the Japanese player. A shot that missed Minh Long's goal post in the penalty area also in the first half and another close-range header that went over the bar when facing the goalkeeper in the second half of Japan U19.

It all started from the left wing of Hong Duy, who was at fault for 3/6 goals that U19 Vietnam conceded in the match against U19 Korea. The first goal that U19 Vietnam conceded in this match was Xuan Hung's fault for his indecisive block, allowing Okugawa to steal the ball and finish past Minh Long.

The second goal was due to goalkeeper Van Truong's unreasonable move and the third goal came when we were no longer focused.

Losing focus at important moments

It is clear that the opponent of U19 Vietnam did not have the best physical condition in this match. It is easy to see that the team in blue shirts could not accelerate significantly against U19 Vietnam until the end of the match. This is also an important reason why the defense of U19 Vietnam was not too disturbed and did not collapse like before U19 Korea.

But we still lost 3 goals despite Thanh Tung's good finishing, equalizing 1-1, rekindling hope for a draw when there were only 6 minutes left. However, U19 Vietnam lost 2 more goals in that short period of time.

The biggest and most direct mistake of course belongs to the defense. The ability to defend against high balls is a very difficult weakness to overcome for U19 Vietnam, but we really lost focus in defense at sensitive moments. The price to pay is very high!

Watch clips of goals:

Ideguchi increased the score to 3-1 for Japan U19.

2-1 for Japan

Thanh Tung equalized 1-1 for U19 Vietnam

Okugawa Masaya opened the score 1-0 for Japan U19

According to TTVH/VnExpress