1. After 3 recent tournaments participating in the knockout round, even reaching the semi-finals and competing for the bronze medal, for the first time Vietnamese football had to stop at the group stage in the biggest sports tournament in the continent (Asiad), making fans disappointed.

However, with the Vietnam Olympic team not placing much emphasis on targets and only bringing to Asiad 19 the youngest team among the participating teams, the above result was predictable.

At the same time, the goal of participating in the Asiad is for the future, so the disappointment is also reduced a lot, not to mention that the Vietnam Olympic team is in a difficult group with the participation of the Iranian Olympic team and the Saudi Arabia Olympic team.

Vietnam Olympic failure at Asiad is not surprising

2. In recent years, Vietnamese football has really flourished in the continental arena, as well as holding first and second place in the region quite continuously.

From the victory in Changzhou with U23 Vietnam to the 18th Asiad in Indonesia, the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup, reaching the 3rd qualifying round of the World Cup... with the Vietnamese team, fans believe that the home team has truly reached a new level.

Returning to Asiad 19, the defeats at Asiad 19 against strong opponents for the gold medal are not regrettable and reasonable, but from here we can judge that Vietnamese football still has a large gap with the big names in the region.

Inexperience and failure are normal, but class is still something that should be frankly admitted in order to use it as motivation to shorten the gap later.

3. It should be reiterated that the decision to participate in the 19th Asiad with a young squad and aiming for a long-term goal by VFF and coach Philippe Troussier is completely correct and reasonable at the present time.

But if we put our faith in this generation of Vietnamese Olympic players to participate in the World Cup, the players themselves need to make more efforts.

The recent successes of Vietnamese football are basically at a time when instead of having a solid foundation in hand, if we want to reach out to the big sea or make the dream of participating in the World Cup come true, we must build from now.

The upcoming World Cup may not give much to the players who just participated in the Asiad due to their age, experience... but the next tournament seems to still have to put hope in Khuat Van Khang, Dinh Bac, Xuan Tien... and it can hardly be otherwise.

But that is a story of the future. Right now, the players who have just returned from the Asiad must understand that their abilities are still lacking and need to make more efforts if they want to be on the Vietnamese team in the future and participate in a World Cup.

Vietnamnet.vn