U17 Vietnam will begin their journey at the 2026 AFC U17 Championship finals with a clash with U17 Yemen on May 7. In the context of Group C with the presence of U17 Korea and U17 UAE, the opening match is considered to have a big impact on the opportunity to compete for a ticket to the next round for coach Roland's team.
U17 Yemen is considered a fairly balanced opponent with U17 Vietnam. Therefore, the goal of winning all 3 points is very important. An unfavorable result will put Sy Bach and his teammates under a lot of pressure before the next 2 matches.
Under Mr. Roland, U17 Vietnam built a playing style that leaned towards control, short ball coordination and maintained tight formation distance. The team is in stable form after the U17 Southeast Asian Championship with an unbeaten record. In that journey, U17 Vietnam scored 19 goals and conceded only 1 goal.
The players also showed progress in organization as well as the ability to deploy the ball against opponents with good physical foundations. The victory over U17 Australia in the semi-finals of the Southeast Asian tournament shows that U17 Vietnam can create surprises when reaching the best playing state.
On the other side, U17 Yemen brought to the tournament a very young squad with many 16-year-old players. This is one of the teams with the lowest average age in the tournament. The preparation process of the West Asian representative was not really favorable when they only gathered from mid-April.
Recent friendly matches of U17 Yemen have not brought positive results when losing to U17 Uzbekistan 1-2 in a training match in Jeddah, and at the same time revealing many problems in defense and maintaining the pace of competition.
The match between U17 Vietnam and U17 Yemen takes place at 0:00 on May 7.
