Which solution will U17 UAE choose against U17 Vietnam?

UAE U17 (white shirt) surprisingly won against Australia U17 - Photo: AFC

Vietnam U17 will face UAE U17 at 10:00 p.m. tonight (April 10) in the final match of Group B of the 2025 AFC U17 Championship.

The match between Japan U17 and Australia U17 will also take place in parallel. Currently, all 4 teams in Group B still have a chance to continue, so this round will decide which 2 names will be next in the World Cup arena.

Facing U17 UAE, coach Cristiano Roland's team must defeat their opponent to be able to continue. Meanwhile, the West Asian representative only needs to win 1 point and wait for the remaining match to end in a draw or for U17 Japan to defeat U17 Australia.

In addition, U17 Australia did not beat Japan by 2 goals or more, which also helped them advance with 1 point in the final round. That shows that the opponent's door to the next round is much more open than ours.

Group B standings after the first two matches - Graphics: AN BINH

However, with the UAE's position and desire to hold self-determination in their hands, they will certainly never draw.

At the press conference before the match, coach Majed Salem also declared that he would play his best to win against U17 Vietnam.

“This is a very difficult group, no match in the tournament is easy. Now, we have to face another tough opponent, U17 Vietnam. The U17 UAE team will fight hard to win and advance to the quarter-finals," coach Majed Salem shared.

However, the West Asian team has not played an active attack at all in this year's tournament. Against two strong opponents, Japan and Australia, they both played defensive counter-attacks with a typical 4-2-3-1 formation with 2 holding midfielders.

The best players of U17 UAE in this year's tournament - Photo: AFC

Therefore, their ball possession rate is quite low with only 30% against Japan and 32% against Australia. This will be difficult for Mr. Majed Salem's students if they choose to play with ball control and want to dominate the match against U17 Vietnam.

If you are used to playing tight defense and lurking for counterattacks, switching to an aggressive attack will expose many weaknesses for us to exploit.

This will almost certainly be the style of play that Coach Salem will choose when the opening whistle blows. Before scoring a goal against U17 Vietnam, they will not easily give up the game to the "golden star warriors".

Meanwhile, with the goal of having to win, coach Roland's team must also play a lot of attacking to find goals. Although the match is very difficult for U17 Vietnam, if they can beat U17 UAE and win a ticket to the World Cup, this will be a miracle for Vietnamese youth football.

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THANH DINH

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/u17-uae-chon-giai-phap-nao-truoc-u17-viet-nam-20250410001425978.htm