The draw results put the Vietnam women's team in Group A with Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia at the 2025 Southeast Asian Women's Football Championship, taking place from August 6 to 19. The matches will take place at Viet Tri Stadium (Phu Tho) and Lach Tray (Hai Phong).
In this group, the Thai and Vietnamese women's teams are two strong candidates to win tickets to continue and compete for the championship. However, unlike the Vietnam women's team, the Thailand women's team will not have the strongest force.
Sharing with Siam Sport, coach Futoshi Ikeda said: This tournament is not included in the FIFA Days schedule, so we cannot call up players playing abroad. Even some players from the BGC-College Of Asian Scholars club are absent, as they are preparing for the continental tournament.
Therefore, most of the Thai women's team is competing domestically, some of whom are only in their U20 age group. They are all young but have competed and the Southeast Asian Championship is a good opportunity for them to gain experience. They have performed well in training sessions and I look forward to their performance in the upcoming tournament.
According to the schedule, the Thai women's team will meet the Indonesian women's team (August 6), the Cambodian women's team (August 9) and the Vietnamese women's team (August 12). To adapt well to the weather and climate conditions in Vietnam as well as have the best preparation for the opening match, the Thai women's team flew to Cat Bi Airport (Hai Phong) from August 3.
Before participating in the Southeast Asian tournament, the Thai women's team participated in the 2026 Asian Cup qualifiers. As a result, they beat Timor-Leste 4-0, Iraq 7-0 and Mongolia 11-0. But with a 1-2 loss to the Indian team in the final match, Futoshi Ikeda and his team were eliminated.
Evaluating the opponents in the Southeast Asian tournament, the Thai coach highly appreciated the Vietnamese women's team. He said: "All three teams in our group have young and potential players, so this is a difficult task for the Thai women's team.
The Indonesian women's team has naturalized players playing abroad, while Cambodia is a team that is still in the process of building and has a diverse playing style.
As everyone knows, the Vietnam women's team is a very strong and fighting team. Therefore, we should not be subjective and need to prepare well.
According to Mr. Ikeda, through the tournament in Vietnam, he wants to develop the Thai women's team to the maximum. The goal he set for his students is to win the championship.
In the history of the Southeast Asian Women's Championship, the Thai women's team has won the championship 4 times, the most recent time in 2018. In the most recent tournament in 2022, they lost 0-3 to the Philippines women's team in the final.
