'U.20 Vietnam must play well and get a ticket to the next round'

Vietnam U.20 will participate in the 2025 AFC U.20 qualifiers, taking place from September 21 to 29. Coach Hua Hien Vinh and his team have the home advantage when playing at Lach Tray Stadium (Hai Phong City), welcoming Bhutan U.20, Guam U.20, Bangladesh U.20 and Syria U.20 respectively.

Sharing at the press conference before the qualifying round, coach Hua Hien Vinh affirmed that U.20 Vietnam has prepared carefully for the tournament and will strive for the best results.

Coach Hua Hien Vinh

"With home field advantage, we aim to give the audience good performances and try to gain many points to participate in the 2025 AFC U-20 Finals. Through this tournament, we also want to learn and gain more battle experience when competing with many teams in Asia.

"To prepare for the tournament, we had a training trip in Japan and had 2 practice matches with U.20 Russia in Vietnam. The team has improved somewhat in terms of defense and counter-attacks. The players have understood the playing style of the teams in the tournament, so that we can aim for the best results," commented coach Hua Hien Vinh.

Vietnam U.20 has participated in the U.20 Asian finals 9 times, in which the best achievement was the ticket to the Asian semi-finals in 2016, thereby winning a ticket to the U.20 World Cup 2017. In 2023, coach Hoang Anh Tuan's Vietnam U.20 played impressively in the group stage when they defeated Australia U.20 (1-0) and Qatar U.20 (2-1). Unfortunately, the 1-3 defeat to Iran U.20 caused Vietnam U.20 to stop, despite winning 6 points.

As one of the first two teams to play, U.20 Guam coach Dominic Tacadina Gadia said: "We hope to show our best performance in the tournament. Everything has been carefully prepared, hopefully the whole team will show their full potential."

Coach Gadia (black shirt) of Guam U.20

Meanwhile, coach Takahashi Hideharu of U.20 Bhutan commented: "We are proud to represent Bhutan in the 2025 U.20 Asian qualifiers. The whole team is very eager to compete with our opponents.

Bhutan is a country with a high happiness index, and I see that in Vietnam people are also very happy. Happiness is very important to people, and the same goes for football. However, in football, when playing on the field, concentration needs to be shown on fighting strength, as well as players need to be calm and intelligent. This is also a very important factor."

Coach Hideharu of Bhutan U.20

Speaking at the press conference, coach Maruful Haque of Bangladesh U.20 thanked AFC for organizing this tournament, and also thanked host Vietnam for providing the best conditions for the teams.

"We only have 2 weeks to prepare for the 2025 AFC U-20 qualifiers. The opponents in this group are all very strong, but I still want Bangladesh to make it to the finals," Haque analyzed.

Highly rated opponent in this group, coach Mohamed Aqeel of U.20 Syria emphasized: "We came here and brought 100% of our strength to perform in the tournament. The players are ready, hopefully U.20 Syria will have good results.

Coach Mohamed Aqeel of Syria U.20 (middle)

We respect all teams. As you can see, Asian football is developing very quickly, I think that all teams pay a lot of attention to building and developing their teams. The quality of a tournament will be shown through each match, we are ready for the challenges no matter who the opponent is.

Group A of the AFC U-20 Championship qualifiers will kick off tomorrow (September 21) with two matches: U.20 Guam vs. U.20 Bhutan at 4 p.m., U.20 Bangladesh vs. U.20 Syria at 7 p.m.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/hlv-hua-hien-vinh-tuyen-bo-u20-viet-nam-phai-da-hay-va-lay-ve-di-tiep-185240920155800814.htm