Last year, after winning the U.23 Southeast Asian Championship in Cambodia, the U.23 Vietnam team continued to win the SEA Games at home. But this year, we lost the SEA Games championship to U.23 Indonesia. It was not until the Southeast Asian Championship recently held in Thailand that coach Hoang Anh Tuan's team regained the regional youth football championship, from the hands of the team from the archipelago country.
Vietnam U.23 team beat Indonesia
PHUC THANG
Goalkeeper Quan Van Chuan is the best goalkeeper of the 2023 Southeast Asian U.23 tournament.
PHUC THANG
Thailand (blue shirt) is no longer the leading force in Southeast Asian youth football.
That shows that the achievements in youth tournaments, for youth teams, are not stable. Coach Hoang Anh Tuan himself said: "U.23 Vietnam has potential, but not to the point of surpassing the level of youth football in Southeast Asia in the same age group".
Most of the teams participating in the 2023 Southeast Asian U.23 tournament are missing many key players in the U.23 generation. Therefore, the tournament is not a completely accurate measure of the level of youth football in the region.
However, looking at it from the opposite perspective, despite the absence of many key players, U.23 Vietnam still played well and won the championship, which is a sign of the potential of Vietnamese youth football, showing that the next generation of Vietnamese football does not lack talent.
Many of the players participating in this year's U.23 Southeast Asian tournament are only 17-19 years old, and have already played steadily in an international tournament. This also reflects that the younger Vietnamese players will mature sooner if they are placed in the right development environment and given the right coach to train and guide them.
Similar signals also appeared in young Indonesian players. Twice in a row within a few months, they defeated their opponents Thailand. Twice in a row within a few months, they reached the finals of tournaments at the age of 23, showing that the young players of Indonesian football have made significant progress.
Although they did not bring to the U.23 Southeast Asian tournament the best team that won the 32nd SEA Games in May, U.23 Indonesia still has striker Ramadhan Sananta, midfielder Beckham Putra, or wingers Bagas Kaffa, Frengky Missa... showing that Indonesia's youth football potential is huge.
The weakness of Indonesian football over the years has been the lack of a unified plan, and those who have managed the country's football for many years have been too hasty and always demanding immediate results. Now, if Indonesian football can change that, they will be a formidable force in the near future.
Indonesia (red shirt) is currently the most formidable competitor of Vietnamese youth football.
The opposite situation is happening to Thai football. With three consecutive failures at the U.23 Southeast Asian Championship (2019, 2022 and 2023), plus three consecutive failures at the SEA Games (2019, 2022 and 2023), Thai youth football cannot be said to not have quality problems.
It is noteworthy that the above mentioned period of Thailand's empty-handed youth football coincided with the period when domestic coaches continuously boycotted working with the Football Association of Thailand (FAT), from the time FAT President Somyot Poompunmuang pressured coach Kiatisak to resign from the national team.
This made the experts in Thailand no longer feel respected, before they gradually abandoned the teams. Maybe the Thai national team is still strong, because the old generation of Chanathip Songkrasin, Teerasil Dangda, Sarach Yooyen, Thitiphan Puangchan... still wear the team shirt. But in the next generations, the Thai youth teams have declined a lot.
That is also a lesson for Vietnamese football in the coming years. If we want to develop in depth and professionally, we must definitely respect professionals and people like coach Hoang Anh Tuan!
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