Vietnam’s U23 team laid a floral wreath at the statue of late President Ho Chi Minh in HCM City (Source: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – Around 25,000 fansholding national flags and wearing red colour T-shirts with yellow star flockedto Thong Nhat Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City’s district 10 to join an exchangewith Vietnam’s U23 team on February 4.
They welcomed head coach Park Hang-seo and hisplayers with excitement, cheers, hand claps when they went around the stadiumto express their gratitude to the fans for endless love and support for theteam during the three-week AFC U-23 Championship.
Park expressed his surprise at the warmestwelcome and love that Vietnamese supporters have reserved for him, othercoaches and the U23 football team, promising that he will double his efforts tobetter train the team.
Amid non-stop cheers, captain Luong Xuan Truongalso extended his thanks to Vietnamese fans for their love, saying that “as theteam captain, I always try my best to connect all players in the team. Aheadeach match in the AFC U-23 Championship, I united the team to ensure our winningdetermination for the national pride and trust of Vietnamese fans.”
During the exchange programme, Chairman of themunicipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong presented two billion VND (88,000USD) to the U23 team, 100 million VND (4,400 USD) to assistant coach Lu DinhTuan and midfielder Tran Dinh Trong each, and 50 million VND (2,200 USD) togoalkeeper Nguyen Van Hoang.
Le Cong Vinh, acting President of the Ho Chi MinhCity Football Club, presented 500 million VND (22,000 USD) to the team.
Vietnam’s U23 team also received 6.8 billion VND (300,000USD) from businesses at the event.
Vietnam came second at the AFC U23 Championshipafter losing 1-2 to Uzbekistan in the final in Changzhou, China, on January 27.
Earlier, the team defeated Australia 1-0 in thegroup stage. They won over Iraq in the quarterfinals and Qatar in thesemifinals with penalty shootouts.
With these achievements, Vietnam became the firstSoutheast Asian squad to compete in the AFC U23 final.-VNA