Vietnam suffer 2-1 defeat to Bahrain ahead of 2020 AFC U23 Championship

The continental championship is scheduled to be held in Thailand from January 8 to 26 with Vietnam, who were runners-up in 2018 to Uzbekistan, looking to go one better playing closer to home this time around.

And as part of their preparations, Park Hang-seo’s men were up against the Bahrain U-23s in a training match in Bangkok, but went down to a rather unexpected defeat to the Middle Eastern force.

This was only Vietnam U-23s’ second defeat in over an year’s time as the Southeast Asian side had only lost once in the 2019 calendar year when they took part in the 2020 AFC U23 Championship Qualifiers and the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in Philippines.

Vietnam had emerged as the gold medal winners in men’s football of the 30th SEA Games last month.

The Golden Dragons are pitted against DPR Korea, Jordan and United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Group D of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship set to kick off in Thailand.

They will open their campaign against UAE on January 10 and then face Jordan on January 13 and North Korea on January 16.

Meanwhile, Bahrain are in Group A along with hosts Thailand, Iraq and Australia.