The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is planning to organize the AFC Nations League - a tournament for men's national teams, following a similar model to the UEFA Nations League in Europe. If implemented, the Vietnam team will have more opportunities to participate in a new international playground, in addition to the current official tournaments.
According to AFC's announcement on December 21, the idea of establishing the AFC Nations League was made after an internal review and consultation with member federations. AFC believes that organizing friendly matches during FIFA Days is increasingly difficult due to the lack of suitable opponents, high travel costs and complex logistics problems, reducing the professional value of many international matches.
The AFC Nations League is expected to create a planned competition system, helping national teams compete regularly, at the right level and have clear competitive motivation. With 47 member federations and a large difference in class, classifying the teams is considered a suitable solution to create balanced matches.
The Nations League model has been successfully applied in Europe and North - Central America. The UEFA Nations League was established in 2018, replacing most friendly matches with an up and down competition system, helping teams maintain the pace of competition and improve professional quality. At CONCACAF, the Nations League also brings a more stable competition schedule for many teams that have few opportunities to compete internationally.
For the Vietnamese team, if the AFC Nations League is born, it will open up an important competition channel in addition to the World Cup qualifiers, Asian Cup and ASEAN Cup. According to the FIFA rankings in November 2025, the Vietnam team is ranked 20th in Asia. If applying a similar classification model to UEFA, it is likely that the team will be classified as a fairly average group, often facing opponents of the same level, thereby maintaining professional stability and improving FIFA rankings.
Currently, the AFC has not announced the specific format, organization time as well as the connection between the AFC Nations League and other tournaments. These contents will continue to be discussed before making an official decision. However, with the trend that has been affirmed in many regions, the AFC Nations League is likely to soon become a part of the international competition schedule of Asian football.
