On the morning of April 29, the Vietnam U19 team entered the first training session at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center, starting the preparation process for the 2026 Southeast Asian U19 Championship and the 2027 AFC U20 Championship qualifiers.
According to the plan of head coach Yutaka Ikeuchi, the coaching staff is calling up an expected list of 41 players. However, in the first training session, the team only had 24 players participating. Many cases of absence are due to playing in national professional leagues and the Second Division, while some young players still have to balance between playing and preparing for the high school graduation exam.
The incomplete gathering from the beginning caused the coaching staff to adjust the plan, deploy in parallel the maintenance of training and review of forces in each stage. Players will focus on supplementing at each time, thereby helping the squad gradually be completed.
In the first training session, the coaching staff focused on checking the fitness to assess the physical foundation of each player. This result will be the basis for building a suitable lesson plan in terms of intensity and content, before switching to tactical exercises in the next phase.
According to the schedule, U19 Vietnam will maintain training in Hanoi before going to Japan for training and friendly matches from May 18th to May 26th. After that, the team will move to Indonesia to participate in the 2026 U19 Southeast Asian Championship, taking place from June 1st to 15th. The group stage draw is expected to be held on May 8th.
