'The match with Vietnam taught us a lesson'

Vietnam team 2-4 Japan.

Japan won against Vietnam in the opening match of the 2023 Asian Cup. However, the 17th-ranked team in the world experienced difficult moments when they fell behind. After the match, coach Hajime Moriyasu admitted that his team must learn from their experience for the next matches.

" The match against Vietnam taught us a lesson that there are no easy matches in the Asian Cup ," coach Hajime Moriyasu shared.

" In the match against Vietnam in the World Cup qualifiers, we had problems with set pieces. Coming to the Asian Cup, every team will focus on this. I think the team must adjust accordingly ."

Coach Hajime Moriyasu talks with Mr. Philippe Troussier before the match.

Japan took the lead after 11 minutes through Takumi Minamino. However, Vietnam took the lead thanks to two goals from Nguyen Dinh Bac and Pham Tuan Hai. Both goals came from set pieces, similar to Nguyen Thanh Binh's goal in the 1-1 draw with Japan in the second leg of the third qualifying round for the 2022 World Cup.

However, the Japanese team showed their class when they calmly deployed their play, finding gaps in the Vietnamese team's defense to score 3 goals. They won 4-2.

" We had a difficult first match. Of course, the team had to think about having to follow the developments. However, the players were calm, adjusted and maintained their playing state. There are still things to consider, but I have faith in the future, " added Mr. Moriyasu.

With this victory, the Japanese team extended their winning streak to 11. No team at the 2023 Asian Cup can match or surpass this achievement of coach Hajime Moriyasu and his team. In this winning streak, only in the match against Tunisia did Japan score 2 goals, the rest of them scored at least 4 goals.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese team left an impressive performance. The team scored 2 goals, did not receive any penalty cards, thereby gaining an advantage if they had to compete on additional indexes to advance.