The mark against Southeast Asian opponents
The Vietnamese women's team cannot win the 2025 Southeast Asian Championship at home. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team won third place in the tournament.
However, this achievement does not mean that the Vietnamese women's team is at a disadvantage in the regional arena. Remember, in addition to the 1-2 defeat to Australia, Huynh Nhu and her teammates have absolutely won against Southeast Asian teams.
In the group stage, the Vietnam women's team easily defeated Cambodia 6-0, Indonesia 7-0 and Thailand 1-0 to take the top spot. In the semi-final, against Australia, who were superior in stature and skill, the Vietnamese female players lost 1-2.
In fact, this was predicted by coach Mai Duc Chung a few months in advance when he heard that Australia would send a representative to participate in the regional tournament. Australia itself also just defeated Myanmar in the final to win the championship.
Losing to a strong opponent like Australia is not a welcome thing. After this defeat, the Vietnam women's team is determined to beat Thailand in the third-place match. Huynh Nhu, Hai Yen, Bich Thuy... helped the home team defeat Thailand for the second time with a score of 3-1 and won the bronze medal.
The journey at the 2025 Southeast Asian Games with positive results will further strengthen the confidence of the Vietnamese women's team towards the 33rd SEA Games. This is the tournament that experts say host Thailand will strive to win the gold medal in women's football.
Therefore, the recent victories are the motivation for coach Mai Duc Chung's team to aim to defend the SEA Games title.
Things to improve
In parallel with the positive signal in terms of results, the Vietnam women's team needs to improve some limitations after this year's Southeast Asian tournament.
First is the ability to take advantage of opportunities. It cannot be denied that Vietnam has the most goalscoring attack in the tournament (18 goals), but the players can completely optimize the number of opportunities created.
This is also the reason why the Vietnam women's team does not have a representative to win the Golden Boot award. The player who scored the most goals for the team was Hai Yen with only 4 goals, 3 goals less than the best striker of the tournament, Win Theingi Tun (Myanmar).
Also related to the above issue, the list of players who contributed goals for the Vietnam women's team is mostly veteran and experienced players such as Huynh Nhu (33 years old), Thai Thi Thao (30 years old), Nguyen Thi Van (28 years old), Tuyet Dung (31 years old), Duong Thi Van (30 years old), Bich Thuy (31 years old) or Hai Yen (30 years old).
Some young players given the opportunity only revolved around Hai Linh, Thanh Nha, Tran Thi Duyen, Van Su. Meanwhile, new findings under 23 are still quite modest.
Of course, in the context of aiming for the highest goal of the Southeast Asian tournament, coach Mai Duc Chung's choice of a safe solution when using older players is not wrong. However, in the opposite direction, the heritage of the Vietnamese women's team also needs attention, especially when the current main generation begins to be greatly affected by age.
Remember, in addition to regional tournaments, the aspiration of the Vietnamese women's team is to win a ticket to the 2027 World Cup through the Asian Cup finals taking place next year. Based on the roadmap for the next 2 years, the task of rejuvenating the women's football force is a must for the coaching staff. This has been prepared by Thailand, the Philippines... from now on.
Another factor that fans are looking forward to is the addition of overseas Vietnamese resources. Up to now, coach Mai Duc Chung has created conditions for Nguyen Hoang Nam Mi to try her hand in the training phase.
However, in the official tournament, the squad is still lacking the contributions of Vietnamese talents. In the context of opponents actively naturalizing and rejuvenating their forces, the Vietnamese women's team cannot stay outside this trend.
