U23 Vietnam after ASIAD: Worrying about AFF Cup!

Consecutively entering the top 4 teams in the continent in the last 2 youth tournaments, U23 Vietnam has made an unprecedented achievement in the history of Southeast Asian football in general and Vietnamese football history in particular. However, this achievement is not a guarantee for us to be able to come to the AFF Suzuki Cup 2018 at the end of this year with the confidence of a conqueror.

The current U23 Vietnam squad is almost no different from the official squad of the national team.

Like the U23 Vietnam team under coach Alfred Riedl at the 22nd SEA Games in 2003, the current U23 Vietnam squad is almost no different from the official squad of the national team, and if coach Park Hang Seo just adds 4 or 5 overage players, we will have a complete national team.

For example, in goal there will be the return of Dang Van Lam, above is Que Ngoc Hai, in midfield there are Do Hung Dung, Khac Ngoc, Huy Hung, Do Van Thuan, in the striker position there are Thanh Trung, Vu Minh Tuan or Trong Hoang.

Currently, there is no one better than Anh Duc in the center forward role, and Duc Chinh still seems very young, so coach Park Hang Seo will have a headache finding more qualified and experienced personnel to take on this spearhead position.

The advantage of the U23+3 team is that the players have had a lot of time playing football together, so the level of understanding and bonding is almost indisputable, but the disadvantage is also here, when the generation of Xuan Truong, Cong Phuong... have competed in international football since 2013, so the opponents in the region are no strangers to each person's strengths and weaknesses, and the players of the older generation such as Van Quyet, Anh Duc, Vu Minh Tuan... do not need to be mentioned.

That's why we can say that U23 Vietnam can dominate the continental playground, can beat the top teams in Asia like U23 Japan, but it's not certain that we can easily overcome teams like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or even Cambodia, the opponents that made Vietnam suffer in the 2019 ASIAN Cup qualifiers and will meet us again in the group stage of the 2018 AFF Suzuki Cup.

Besides, Coach Park Hang Seo's attitude towards the group of key players of U23 Vietnam who have fought with him from the U23 Asian Cup to ASIAD 2018 will also be a decisive factor in the success or failure of the Vietnamese team at AFF Suzuki Cup 2018.

The reason for saying that is because it seems that coach Park Hang Seo still has great faith in this group of pillars, to the point that as long as they are not injured and practice regularly, their names will be on the official list, typically in the case of Xuan Truong.

The HAGL midfielder had a very bad tournament, weak from defense to attack and completely lacking the shadow of the player who once took on the role of professional and spiritual leader of U23 Vietnam at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship. However, Xuan Truong was still used quite a lot, even wearing the captain's armband and starting in the semi-final match against U23 Korea.

We all know the result, when the strategy that coach Park Hang Seo prepared for U23 Vietnam was ruined in the first half because we had to receive 2 goals in a row at the beginning of the match, and one of the important reasons was the decline to the point of being unrecognizable in Xuan Truong's position.

Any coach must build a core group of key players for the team under his control, that is natural, but how to balance maintaining that framework with creating opportunities for new players, to create healthy competition for positions within the team.

In other words, there are many problems waiting for Coach Park Hang Seo to find solutions, and the AFF Suzuki Cup 2018 may be the tournament that will fully and clearly demonstrate the advantages and limitations, if any, of Coach Park Hang Seo, because here the opponents will not be limited by age like the U23 Asian Cup or ASIAD 2018.