After a 4-1 victory over U23 Laos in the opening match, U23 Vietnam is aiming to defeat U23 Philippines to advance to the semi-finals of the 2023 Southeast Asian U23 Championship.
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| Players of the Vietnam U23 team practice physical recovery after the opening match at the 2023 Southeast Asian U23 Championship. (Source: VFF) |
U23 Vietnam aims to win first place in Group C
Before the decisive match, the U23 Vietnam team is leading Group C with 3 points, while the U23 Philippines has only one point.
The remaining team in Group C, U23 Laos, had to stop after only getting one point after two group stage matches.
This also means that U23 Vietnam only needs to not lose to U23 Philippines in the last match of the group stage to continue as group leaders.
However, coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his team certainly want to win the match against U23 Philippines to create momentum before entering the semi-finals.
If they win first place in Group C, the U23 Vietnam team will face the team that wins first place in Group B, most likely the U23 Malaysia team.
The match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Philippines will take place at 8:00 p.m. at Rayong Stadium, Thailand.
The "fate" of U23 Indonesia is decided by U23 Vietnam
The match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Philippines not only determines the ticket to the next round in Group C but also greatly affects the "fate" of the U23 Indonesia team in the 2023 Southeast Asian U23 tournament.
The U23 Indonesia team has finished the group stage early after playing two matches. In Group B, they have 3 points (0 goal difference) and are temporarily in second place in Group B after U23 Malaysia (3 points, +1 goal difference), while U23 Timor Leste is at the bottom with no points.
In the final match of Group B, U23 Malaysia will face U23 Timor Leste. In this match, U23 Malaysia only needs a draw to advance, while U23 Timor Leste must win by at least two goals.
U23 Timor Leste can join U23 Malaysia in advancing if they win by one goal but with a score that is good enough to be better than U23 Indonesia.
However, it is unlikely that there will be any surprises in this match as Malaysia is rated much higher.
In case U23 Malaysia does not lose, coach Shin Tae Yong's team still has to wait for the result of U23 Vietnam's match to see if they can qualify to continue or not.
If the U23 Vietnam team does not lose to the U23 Philippines team, the U23 Indonesia team will win the last ticket to the semi-finals as the second-placed team with the best record.
However, if U23 Vietnam loses 0-2 to U23 Philippines, coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his team will still have 3 points and a better goal difference than U23 Indonesia. At that time, U23 Philippines and U23 Vietnam will enter the semi-finals while U23 Indonesia will return home early.
Of course, the U23 Vietnam team does not want to finish second in the group, so this is unlikely to happen.
U23 Thailand won the first semi-final ticket
In the final match of Group A on August 21, U23 Thailand had an easy 2-0 victory over U23 Cambodia in a "life and death" match.
This victory helped the home team Thailand gain 9 absolute points, scoring 8 goals and not conceding any, advancing straight to the semi-finals as the top team in Group A.
In the semi-finals, U23 Thailand will face the second-placed team with the best record (if there are no surprises, it will be U23 Indonesia).
Meanwhile, this defeat forced U23 Cambodia to stop playing at the 2023 Southeast Asian U23 tournament.
At the end of the group stage, the U23 Cambodia team had 4 points and ranked second in Group A, but because this group had 4 teams, the result of the match against U23 Brunei (bottom of the group) was not taken into account.
Thus, up to this point, the 2023 Southeast Asian U23 tournament has officially said goodbye to 4 teams, including U23 Cambodia, U23 Myanmar, U23 Brunei (Group A) and U23 Laos (Group C).
The remaining three semi-finalists, as well as the last two teams to be eliminated, will be determined after the matches taking place on the afternoon of August 22 in Group B and Group C.
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