U23 Vietnam (in white) tie goalless with Syria on January 17th (Source: AFC)
The Vietnamese players will face their Iraqi rivals at 18h30 on January 20th (at the Changshu Sports Center) who ranks first in Group C.
On January 14th, Nguyen Quang Hai helped the nation earned three point in a 1-0 victory over Australia. It marked a milestone for the U23 Vietnam team in an AFC U23 championship. The nation lost to the strong rival the Republic of Korea 1-2 in the previous match on January 11th.
Vietnamese head coach Park Hang-seo: "I want to thank my players, they played as a team today with an excellent spirit. We wanted to win (the match), but my players were physically tired, so our performance dropped a little. I made substitutions at the right time to fix this issue. The most important thing for us now is to recover before the next match. Our decision to play with five defenders in the three matches was necessary because we were playing against very strong teams in this group. It is too early to decide if we are going to use the same style against Iraq”.While Syrian head coach, Hussein Afash, said: “The match was a very difficult one, as both teams were looking to qualify to the quarter finals, and it was made even harder by the result in the other game. We tried to attack in every possible way, and I think that the Vietnam goal came under more pressure today than in their previous two matches. Football is a game of numbers and goals, and we failed in terms of goals".
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism cum President of the Vietnam Olympic Committee Nguyen Ngoc Thien sent their congratulatory messages to players, head coach Park Hang-seo and staffs, hoping that the team would go further on the race.
On this occasion, the U23 national squad received VND200 million from Minister Ngoc Thien, and VND1.4 billion from VFF.
Meanwhile, international sports news run articles congratulating Vietnamese soldiers who are full of happiness and power in Jiangsu - an Eastern-Central coastal province of the People's Republic of China.
Reporter Gabriel Tan wrote on Fox Sports, “A resolute display by Vietnam has seen them qualify for the knockout round of the 2018 AFC U23 Championship with a 0-0 draw against Syria”.
Despite coming up against tremendous pressure from the Syrians at the 30,000 seat-Changshu Stadium, a heroic defensive showing by Vietnam was enough to earn a point.
“The point was enough to see Vietnam advance to the last eight as Group D runners-up after the Republic of Korea beat Australia 3-2 in January 17th’s other game. The first half, especially, there was no chance for Syrians scoring a goal”, published the-afc.com homepage.
Meanwhile the daily newspaper New Straits Times (Malaysia) highly valued impressive performance of Vietnamese players. Southeast Asia will now have two teams in this year’s quarters after Malaysia also advanced on January 16th.
“A new page in Vietnam’s football history was opened with victory over U23 Syrian rivals. They entered quarter-finals with four points after three matches”, wrote FourFourTwo (Thai edition)./.