U22 Vietnam has officially departed for China to participate in the 2025 CFA Team China friendly tournament. This is the first step in preparing for the 33rd SEA Games at the end of the year in Thailand. This journey will be difficult and stressful for the young players.
In fact, U22 Vietnam will use players born from 2003 onwards. Most of them do not have much experience in the front. Some quality names such as Nguyen Thai Son, Khuat Van Khang, Bui Vi Hao or Tran Trung Kien will often have to serve the national team.
In such a situation, head coach Dinh Hong Vinh had to call up a squad of many young players who had never competed in truly quality international tournaments.
Among these, we can mention goalkeeper Nguyen Tan (Ba Ria - Vung Tau), Cao Van Binh (Song Lam Nghe An), Hieu Minh, Le Phat (PVF)... Even the two overseas Vietnamese players Viktor Le and Andrej Nguyen An Khanh are the same.
U22 Vietnam did not win any friendly matches against the Second Division team Quang Ninh and U19 PVF, before going to China. To be fair, the practice results do not reflect the entire image of a team. Coach Dinh Hong Vinh himself also understands the pressure of himself and his students.
On the one hand, he has to maintain a tactical system as required by coach Kim Sang-sik. On the other hand, testing players, creating maximum conditions for everyone to play must be taken into account. With the framework not yet clearly defined, it will not be surprising if U22 Vietnam plays a friendly match with many unsatisfactory results.
First of all, the opponents at CFA Team China 2025 such as China, Uzbekistan and South Korea are all very strong. Speaking specifically about Korea, the Korean team brought 9 players who participated in the 2023 U20 World Cup. This shows the seriousness of the East Asian opponents when participating in the tournament. In addition, Uzbekistan and China also called up many quality factors.
The team that has experimented the most is... U22 Vietnam. Quoc Viet and his teammates will likely face defeat. Even in just friendly matches, if they continue to lose, U22 Vietnam will still face many criticisms from fans.
We need to sympathize with the public to some extent. They are not experts and are interested in football from an entertainment perspective. Victory always brings joy and failure does not.
As for the U22 Vietnam players, maintaining their spirit and continuing to " study the history" is the most important thing to aim for a successful SEA Games.
