U23 Thailand ended their journey at the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship with a 3-1 victory over U23 Philippines in the third-place match. Although unable to participate in the final match as initially expected, head coach Thawatchai Damrong-Ongtrakul is still satisfied with the competitive spirit and efforts that his students have shown.
"We won, that's a positive thing. I am very happy that the players played their best and got good results. From the first time I was assigned, I said that I wanted to have the players face all the teams.
However, in this tournament, we only met 4 teams, but we also clearly saw the potential and progress of each team," Mr. Thawatchai shared.
The Thai strategist frankly admitted that his team had a not-so-smooth start, but the progressive spirit and improvement in playing style helped U23 Thailand win the bronze medal.
He said: "This tournament is an opportunity for us to evaluate ourselves through many matches, thereby improving in the future. In the first two matches, we made quite a few mistakes, but the players improved and played better with each match. That satisfied me.
Although the initial goal was to win the championship, when they could not reach the final, the players still maintained a high determination to win the third-place match".
In addition, the captain of U23 Thailand also did not forget to mention the strong rise of football teams in the region, including U23 Vietnam: "In my opinion, currently the strongest teams in Southeast Asia cannot help but mention Vietnam, Indonesia and some other teams. I think the teams have all had clear development, so we cannot take any opponents lightly. The important thing is that we continue to strengthen the internal strength of our own team."
The speech of the head coach of the Thai U23 team partly shows the recognition of the increasingly solid position of Vietnamese youth football, especially in the context of coach Kim Sang-sik and his team preparing to enter the final match for the championship of the 2025 U23 Southeast Asian Championship with U23 Indonesia.
The match takes place at 20:00 today (July 28) at Bung Karno Stadium.
