Farewell gift for coach Mai Duc Chung

The Vietnamese women's team will face Japan in the final round of the second qualifying round for the 2024 Olympics. This will also be the last time coach Mai Duc Chung leads the Vietnamese team before his contract expires.

Huynh Nhu and her teammates found it difficult to win when their opponents were too strong. Japan is the number 1 women's football team in Asia and ranked 8th in the FIFA rankings, while the Vietnamese team is ranked 34th. At the 19th ASIAD, Japan did not use their strongest force but still won the gold medal.

The Vietnamese women's team faces a big challenge called Japan.

After the first two rounds, the Japanese team won all matches and ranked first in Group C. The Vietnamese and Uzbekistan women's teams both had 3 points. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team ranked higher thanks to a better sub-index.

However, the Vietnamese women's team has very little chance of passing the second qualifying round for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The defeat against Uzbekistan puts Huynh Nhu and her teammates at a disadvantage. If they want to maintain second place in the group, the Vietnamese women's team must score against Japan. This is very unlikely to happen.

The gap in skill between the two teams is too great. At the 19th Asian Games, the Japanese team sent out their second team but easily defeated the Vietnamese team 7-0. In the 2024 Olympic qualifiers, they used their best team, so the difficulty of this challenge is even greater.

Facing a superior opponent, the Vietnamese team aims for the "best possible" result. The farewell gift for coach Mai Duc Chung will be a performance with the best of their abilities, with the determination of Huynh Nhu and her teammates.

Japan vs Vietnam form

The Japanese women's team has been in impressive form since the 2023 World Cup. They have only lost one match, which was against Sweden.

After this tournament, the team from the land of the rising sun played 9 more matches and almost all of them were big wins. They scored 56 goals and the only match in which the Japanese women's players scored less than 4 goals was the recent 2-0 victory over Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese women's team has declined since the 2023 World Cup. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team were eliminated early at the 19th Asian Games, lost to Uzbekistan in the opening match of the second qualifying round for the 2024 Olympics before beating India 3-1.