World Cup 2019: Women's football dreams of a place so close

(Baonghean.vn) - Having convincingly won a ticket to the 2018 Asian Cup, Vietnamese women's football is dreaming of being present at the 2019 World Cup.

Although less invested, after defeating Myanmar, it marked the 8th time the Vietnamese women's team entered the Asian Cup finals. Obviously, the level of Vietnamese women's football is on par with the continent and the next goal is to aim for the 2019 World Cup in France. According to FIFA regulations, Asia will have 5/8 tickets to France to attend the 2019 World Cup.

Vietnam women's football is aiming for the 2019 World Cup. Photo: Internet

Continental level

To date, the 8 teams that have qualified for the 2018 AFC Women’s Asian Cup finals have been determined: Host Jordan, Japan, Thailand, Australia, China, Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam. Accordingly, the Asian Cup finals will be held in Jordan from April 7 to 22 with 8 teams divided into 2 groups.

The groups will play a round-robin to select the top two teams to advance to the semi-finals. The four semi-finalists will qualify for the 2019 World Cup in France. The two third-placed teams in each group will play a play-off to secure the fifth spot in the 2019 World Cup.

In terms of FIFA rankings in Asia alone, the Vietnamese women's team is currently ranked 7th, below Japan, Australia, North Korea, China, South Korea and Thailand. In fact, 4 years ago we could have been present at the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada if we had not unfortunately lost the wild card when facing Thailand.

In May 2014, coach Tran Van Phat and his team from China lost 1-2 to Thailand at home and sadly watched the Thai girls win tickets to the World Cup. Looking at that match, people thought that the women's team with many older players was defeated by the young Thai team. They lost every single one-on-one match, leading to the loss of the entire match.

Play-off chance

It is not difficult to determine that 4/8 teams will compete for the play-off spot: Thailand (ranked 29th in the world), Vietnam women's team (ranked 33rd in the world), Philippines (ranked 68th in the world) and Jordan (ranked 73rd in the world). Of which, Jordan is not even ranked because it has been inactive for 18 months.

We are not too far behind Thailand, and the Philippines is not our opponent, so the competition for a 3rd place in one of the two groups A - B in the 2018 Asian Cup is very big. And the competitors for the 5th place out of 8 teams in the 2018 Asian Cup will be Thailand, Jordan, the Philippines or Bahrain, opponents that the Vietnamese women can completely overcome.

Vietnam women's team is being rejuvenated. Photo: Internet

Looking at the personnel of the Vietnamese women's team under coach Mai Duc Chung, they are being rejuvenated in preparation for a long-term ticket to the 2019 World Cup. Accordingly, apart from goalkeeper Kieu Trinh (1985), defender Nguyen Thi Xuyen (1987), Hai Hoa (1989), Thuy Trang (1988), all the remaining players are from the "9X" generation.

Young players like Tuyet Dung (1993), Vu Thi Thuy (1994), Chuong Thi Kieu (1995), Thuy Hang (1997) have quickly improved under the guidance of their seniors. Watching the decisive match against Myanmar, we can see that our young Vietnamese girls are superior in everything, from individual skills, tactical thinking, experience to physical foundation.

Without even having a ticket to the 2019 World Cup, we must take our hats off to the Vietnamese female football players. While men's football, both at club and national team level, has not achieved much, what the descendants of Ba Trung and Ba Trieu have shown on the field has made the continent admire them.

AT