Vietnamese women football team (Source: vff.org.vn)Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam suffered from a 0-4 loss to Japan in the Group B opener of the 2018 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Asian Cup that took place in Amman, Jordan, on April 7.
With a lineup of highly skilled players, it was not surprising as Japan took control of the game right from the first whistle.
The former world champions only needed three minutes to concretise their domination, with Kumi Yokoyama firing an unstoppable attempt from Mana Iwabuchi’s pass to open the scoring for Japan.
The Vietnamese women had hardly come round from the first goal when they conceded a second scored by Emi Nakajima 14 minutes later. It was Iwabuchi again who provided an excellent right-wing assist for Nakajima to tap in from close range.
Vietnam also deployed a number of counterattacks, which, however, were easily blocked by Japan’s solid defence.
The Japanese players continued to find the net in the 53th and 57 minutes, and maintained their domination until the end of the match.
Meanwhile, the concerted efforts made by Vietnam could not help them to avoid a straight 0-4 defeat overall.
Vietnam is scheduled to face Australia on April 10 evening (local time), and the Republic of Korea (RoK) on April 13.
With the opening loss, the Vietnamese players are not allowed to lose any of their remaining two games against Australia and the RoK (on April 13) if they want to achieve a top-three finish in Group B to advance to the playoff match against Group A’s third-place team for the fifth World Cup ticket.
Earlier, the team finished a ten-day training camp in Germany, with one win and one draw with the local women’s football club.-VNA
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