Vietnam may be in the same group with Thailand at the AFC U19 Championship

According to the seed classification at the AFC U19 Championship, Vietnam U19 is ranked in group 4 while Thailand is in group 2. This means that the possibility of the only two representatives of Southeast Asia meeting each other is possible.

The draw ceremony for the 2016 AFC U19 Championship will be held in Manama (Bahrain) on April 30.

Despite being one of the 10 teams to top the group in the qualifying round and having participated in the AFC U19 Championship 16 times, according to the seed classification results of this year's tournament, the Vietnam team is still ranked in group 4.

The reason is that in this tournament 2 years ago, U19 Vietnam did not have good results against "giants" like Korea, Japan or China and finished at the bottom of the table with only 1 point.

Meanwhile, although they only won a ticket to Bahrain to attend the 2016 AFC U19 Championship as one of the five best runners-up, Thailand U19 is still ranked in the second seed group thanks to finishing first in the group and reaching the quarter-finals at the 2014 AFC U19 Championship.

With this seeding result, the rate for Vietnam to face Thailand in the 2016 AFC U19 Championship will be 25%. Before entering the 2016 AFC U19 Championship, Vietnam and Thailand will soon meet each other next June when participating in the Four Nations tournament taking place in Malaysia.

This is considered a good opportunity for the two teams to test new faces as well as accumulate more competition experience, serving the two important tournaments at the end of the year.

To prepare for the 2016 U19 Asian Cup and 2016 U19 Southeast Asian Cup, Coach Hoang Anh Tuan has drawn up a tentative list of 32 players. 1/3 of them are new faces joining the national team for the first time.

Seed groups at the 2016 AFC U19 Championship

Group 1: Bahrain, Qatar, DPRK, Uzbekistan

Group 2: Japan, Thailand, UAE, China

Group 3: Australia, Iraq, South Korea, Yemen

Group 4: Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan

According to tintuc.vn