On the evening of July 21, U23 Vietnam continued to have its final training session in Indonesia to prepare for the decisive match with U23 Cambodia in the final round of Group B of the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship. The match will take place at 8:00 p.m. on July 22.
Despite having a big advantage after a 3-0 victory over U23 Laos, thereby only needing to draw with Cambodia to win a ticket to the semi-finals as the top of the group, the young Vietnamese players still show great caution.
In an interview with the press before the training session, right-back Vo Anh Quan shared his personal thoughts about his form and evaluated his upcoming opponents. Mr. Quan admitted: "I did not play well in the match against U23 Laos and was quite sad about myself. But I will consider this as motivation to play better in the next match, if given the opportunity".
In the match against U23 Laos, Anh Quan only played for the rest of the first half before being replaced by coach Kim Sang-sik. The young defender said: "I lost the ball quite a lot in the early stages of the match against U23 Laos, so I lost confidence and did not achieve the usual form. Teacher Kim also encouraged me to try to concentrate highly to avoid the same situation".
Talking about the preparation, the U23 Vietnam defender said that the whole team is improving their finishing ability in training sessions. He said: "In each training session, he gives us practice passing the ball in for the striker to finish. We have not done well, so he often encourages us. After that, we did better."
Evaluating the opponent U23 Cambodia, Anh Quan said: "Teachers showed us video tapes, carefully analyzed each position to understand and follow the opponent effectively. After the match against Laos, I rated U23 Cambodia as slightly better than U23 Laos. They controlled the ball very confidently. Therefore, we need to focus on achieving good results".
Mr. Quan also revealed that the whole team still does not know who will be on the starting lineup in the next match, because coach Kim Sang-sik only announced the lineup right before entering the competition.
