Football players from U23 Vietnam and U23 Syria (Photo VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The U23 team havewritten a new page in the history of Vietnamese football after winning a ticketto the quarterfinals of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Championshipin China on January 17.
The accomplishment has received a lot ofcompliments from the international media.
The organiser AFC posted a story on its homepage titled “Draw takes Vietnam into quarter-finals”.
[Vietnam draw Syria, entering AFC U23 Championship quarterfinals]
It quoted the team head coach Park Hang-seo assaying "I want to thank my players, they played as a team today with anexcellent spirit. We wanted to win (the match), but my players were physicallytired, so our performance dropped a little. I made substitutions at the righttime to fix this issue.”
Meanwhile, the Fox Sports Asia carried anarticle under the title “AFC U-23 Championship: Brave Vietnam reachquarter-finals” by journalist Gabriel Tan who wrote that a resolute display byVietnam has seen them qualify for the knockout round of the 2018 AFC U-23Championship with a 0-0 draw against Syria on January 17.
“Despite coming up against tremendous pressurefrom the Syrians at the Changshu Stadium, a heroic defensive showing by Vietnamwas enough to earn a point,” it wrote.
Thailand’s Siam Sportsdescribed the achievement of the U23 Vietnam as a pride of the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Vietnam had a strongdefense plan against a rival with outstanding physical strength, it said.
The Thai version of FourFour Two newspaper also gave a lot of compliments to the U23 Vietnam, sayingthe team has made history with the second place in Group D after the Republicof Korea.
The Thai Rath newspaper saidVietnam’s young football has surpassed Thailand to become the locomotive of theSoutheast Asian region.-VNA
