Favorable weather, Vietnam U20 team hard at work
Officially training from January 28, the U20 National players entered the fifth day of training at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center (Hanoi). Head coach Hoang Anh Tuan with his assistants are focusing on strengthening of the players, with challenging high-intensity exercises.
In an interview with the press before the training session, young goalkeeper Cao Van Binh said that the whole team is practicing very hard: “The coaches have assigned many exercises about competition very carefully to prepare for the upcoming tournament. The morning and afternoon sessions are very balanced and reasonable for us. The atmosphere in the team has created a very good integration for the players as well as helping us to be comfortable in living as well as practicing. Compared to the gathering before Lunar New Year, this one was a bit more stressful for us. The training sessions are also more difficult, so we have to try harder. The goal of the whole team at the upcoming AFC U-20 Asian Cup is to try to play as best as possible in all four matches in the group stage, with the hope of winning tickets to the next rounds.”
Besides that, the young striker of Hanoi FC Nguyen Van Truong shared: “Personally, I see a difference between the coaches, but the common point is that the coaches are all very enthusiastic about the set goal. Mr. Hoang Anh Tuan changes the scheme continuously with exercises to engage individual players. At the last training session, the coaches were still practicing strength, focusing on physical strength and basic skills. Personally, I think the opponents in the AFC U-20 Asian Cup are all strong, so we will try our best to work towards the team’s goal of winning tickets to the World Cup.”
According to the plan, the national U20 players continue to focus on physical training in the mornings and switch to passing and ball control exercises in the afternoons of the same day. This content will be maintained by the coaching staff until the end of February 2023 before moving on to the next training content.
Coach Hoang Anh Tuan’s and players will continue to be stationed at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center in the next two weeks, and are expected to have some training matches with the First-class club before moving to the UAE for training on May 15.
U20 Vietnam is in Group B of the 2023 AFC U20 Asian Cup with Qatar, Australia, and Iran. The matches in the group stage of U20 Vietnam will take place from March 1 to March 7. If they want to win tickets to the U20 World Cup finals, U20 Vietnam must reach the semi-finals of the tournament.