U23 Vietnam needs to overcome pressure
While most teams have played in the group stage of the 2025 Southeast Asian U23, the reigning U23 champion Vietnam is still practicing hard. In addition to the advantage of being able to research and explore opponents, the pressure in the opposite direction for coach Kim Sang-sik and his team is the intensity of competition. According to the schedule issued by the organizing committee, if they want to successfully defend their title, U23 Vietnam will have to play 4 matches within 10 days.
That is also the reason why Mr. Kim Sang-sik built a squad with many options that can be rotated. On average, for each position in the 3-4-3 formation of U23 Vietnam, 2-3 faces with nearly equivalent qualifications are capable of being assigned to compete. However, bad news has just happened to U23 Vietnam when Nguyen Thanh Nhan was injured after receiving the ball in the wrong position and missing the appointment with U23 Southeast Asia. Therefore, Mr. Kim was forced to urgently call up Le Van Thuan - the best young player of V.League 2024 - 2025 to ensure the number of players.
In addition, U23 Vietnam also faced pressure from fans' expectations when they won the championship twice in a row in 2022 and 2023. The participating forces were all supporting teams, not to mention, coaches Dinh The Nam and Hoang Anh Tuan were not captains of the national team at that time. With their steering ability, U23 Vietnam still convincingly conquered the regional championship.
This has unintentionally become a pressure for coach Kim Sang-sik at the present time. For the first time at the U23 Southeast Asian tournament, U23 Vietnam was directly coached by the head coach of the national team. The Korean coach also selected the most experienced players in the current U23 team. If he is not successful in this tournament, the pressure on Mr. Kim will increase, especially when in early June, the Vietnamese team lost 0-4 to Malaysia in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers.
U23 Laos is not easy to bully
U23 Vietnam's opponent in the opening match is U23 Laos. The team from the land of a million elephants had a 1-1 draw with U23 Cambodia a few days ago. Coach Ha Hyeok-jun admitted that U23 Laos is the weakest team in Group B, having lost to U23 Vietnam and U23 Cambodia in many aspects. However, knowing that they knew the players, they had effectively applied the counter-attacking defensive style of play.
On the other hand, U23 Cambodia really had difficulty against the 5-4-1 formation with the system being pushed deep into the home field of U23 Laos. If it were not for Phat Sokha's individual brilliance in the 56th minute, U23 Cambodia would not have been sure to get 1 point. What U23 Cambodia has gone through and how U23 Laos has performed is something that U23 Vietnam needs to analyze to build a reasonable strategy.
At the end of November 2024, in the opening match of the 2024 ASEAN Cup, coach Kim Sang-sik's Vietnam team had a hard first half against Laos. It was not until the second half, with the brilliance of Hai Long, that the "Golden Star Warriors" broke the game before defeating their opponents with a score of 4-1.
The current U23 Vietnam squad has a number of stars who can decide the game such as Viktor Le, Quoc Viet, Van Khang or Van Truong. This is the basis for coach Kim Sang-sik to hope for a smooth start for the home team.
Commenting on the match of U23 Vietnam, football expert Phan Anh Tu said: "U23 Vietnam's opponents are not too strong, but on the contrary, we bring the strongest squad to the tournament, not the U18 or U19 to experiment with anymore.
With only 3 teams in the U23 Vietnam group, the chance to continue is within reach. However, regarding subjective factors, football always contains surprises and we cannot be subjective. If U23 Vietnam plays better but is too hot, lacks rhythm, plays individually... it will be very difficult to eat. Especially when U23 Laos defended very resiliently and counterattacked well. I think U23 Vietnam needs to play comfortably, play to their full potential and level, and regulate well to get good results".
The U23 Vietnam team will have their opening match against U23 Laos at 5:00 p.m. on July 19 at patriot Stadium and will be broadcast live on FPT Play.
