U23 Vietnam win international praise
The U23 team have written a new page in the history of Vietnamese football after winning a ticket to the quarterfinals of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Championship in China on January 17.
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The accomplishment has received a lot of compliments from the international media.
The organiser AFC posted a story on its home page titled “Draw takes Vietnam into quarter-finals”.
It quoted the team head coach Park Hang-seo as saying "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.”
Meanwhile, the Fox Sports Asia carried an article under the title “AFC U-23 Championship: Brave Vietnam reach quarter-finals” by journalist Gabriel Tan who wrote that a resolute display by Vietnam has seen them qualify for the knockout round of the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship with a 0-0 draw against Syria on January 17.
“Despite coming up against tremendous pressure from the Syrians at the Changshu Stadium, a heroic defensive showing by Vietnam was enough to earn a point,” it wrote.
Thailand’s Siam Sports described the achievement of the U23 Vietnam as a pride of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Vietnam had a strong defense plan against a rival with outstanding physical strength, it said.
The Thai version of Four Four Two newspaper also gave a lot of compliments to the U23 Vietnam, saying the team has made history with the second place in Group D after the Republic of Korea.
The Thai Rath newspaper said Vietnam’s young football has surpassed Thailand to become the locomotive of the Southeast Asian region.
