World media stunned by welcome home ceremony for U23 players

VOV.VN - Hundreds of thousands of fans endured cold weather to greet Vietnam’s U23 squad on January 28 as they returned home after winning a silver medal at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Championship.

Photo taken by Channel NewsAsia
Fox Sport Asia posted pictures of the U23 football players being welcomed at Noi Bai International Airport with the caption “The heroes are back”. The biggest prize the Vietnamese team has won is the confidence for the other ASEAN football teams.

Meanwhile Fox Sports wrote, “Ultimately, Vietnam winning the trophy would have made a good story great but didn’t matter that much. The main prize had already been won. The legacy of this team will be all the above – the bringing together of a country and all the other benefits – and something else. Vietnam have erased any semblance of the inferiority complex that ASEAN teams have had when taking on so-called bigger and better nations on the pitch.”
Arab News
The Nikkei Asian Review reported that the team’s trip to the Asian finals fostered a sense of national camaraderie and that the words of the Vietnamese patriotic song “Vietnam, Uncle Ho Chi Minh” were echoing around Hanoi.

It wrote, “Vietnamese hearts were broken in the final minutes of overtime when Uzbekistan scored the game winner from a corner kick. Yet, many were proud of their young countrymen. People took to the streets to wave the national flag all through the night.”

Photo: reuters
Reuters said Vietnamese football fans celebrated with national flags in the street, creating an atmosphere as if Vietnam had just won the World Cup.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) said it was shocked by the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people bursting with national pride as they welcomed their young football players home.

Daily Mail said, “The under-23 team was the first Southeast Asian side to reach the final of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Championship, blowing past regional heavyweights like Iraq and Qatar. The normally low-profile event has been followed with the fervour of a World Cup final in the Southeast Asian nation following the meteoric rise of the young squad who have united a country with few tastes of sporting glory on the world stage.

Despite the loss, the huge crowd of fans were bursting with national pride as they streamed home, some still chanting "Vietnam the champion!"

The meteoric rise of the young squad has united a country with few tastes of sporting glory on the world stage, according to Daily Mail (Photo: AFP)
According to ESPN, despite losing after extra time to Uzbekistan in snowy China, Vietnam over-achieved to make the final. The snow-white pitch proved to be a disadvantage for red-clad Vietnam, as it allowed Uzbekistan's players, who wore an all-white strip, to blend into the background.

Meanwhile CTV said Park Hang-seo is now a national hero of Vietnam. The runner-up of this tournament is Vietnam’s best record of all time. It was the first time the Southeast Asian country has won the runners-up in Asia.

Sportalkorea wrote, “Coach Park Hang-seo has inspired the players and made outstanding achievements in the Asian stage.”
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