Vietnamese football has developed in many fields

Pic: Lam Thoa

Historical achievements of national teams

The period 2018-2022 is considered to be the period when the national teams compete most successfully. In particular, Vietnam Team has brought fans a lot of emotions. Until entering the 2018-2022 period, Vietnamese football received many failures in the international arena. Vietnam Team many times lost at the AFF Cup, even the instant defeats took away many tears and regrets from the fans. Many coaches came and left, leaving gaps and doubts about their ability to bring success to the Vietnamese team. Faced with that situation, VFF has directed and drastically changed the Vietnamese team to get a great development path. First, the appearance of Coach Park Hang Seo started the series of great successes of the national teams. The successful negotiation of VFF, brought Mr. Park came to the Vietnamese team, opened a brilliant history stage for the country’s football.

At the 2019 Asian Cup, Vietnam Team with the players trained by talented coach Park Hang Seo created a huge surprise when coming to the quarterfinals and only stopped in front of the runner-up Japan. It should be emphasized that this is the tournament where Vietnam Team is the only team of ASEAN to reach the quarterfinals. Entering 2021 with many changes, especially the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly affected training and competition, but the team of head coach Park Hang Seo still overcome all difficulties to qualified the asian final qualifying round of the World Cup 2022 for the first time. It was the tournament in which Vietnam Team eliminated a series of strong teams in the second qualifying round to become the only ASEAN team to go directly into the final qualifying round.

Pic: Grand

With women’s football, in 2022, the Vietnamese women’s team excellently won a slot to the 2023 Women’s World Cup when they overcame Thailand and Chinese Taipei in the play-off matches. In addition, it must be mentioned that the Vietnamese women’s team won three consecutive gold medals in women’s football at the SEA Games in 2017, 2019, and 2022. Although there are still difficulties specific to women’s football, over the years, VFF has made great efforts to ensure the maintenance of women’s football tournaments as well as invest in women’s teams to have the best opportunities during overseas training camp before participating in international tournaments. It can be assessed that, in ASEAN, Vietnamese women’s football is still in the leading position in terms of investment level as well as achievements.

In futsal, Vietnam futsal team qualified to the FIFA Futsal World Cup – Lithuania 2021 for the second time.

The king of regional football

In the period 2018-2022, Vietnam Team competes in many international tournaments, in which the AFF Cup arena always receives special attention. Since participating in this tournament, Vietnam Team has “missed” many times and after being crowned in 2008, the team did not compete successfully, even stopping from the group stage (2012). In this arena, in addition to Thailand, which has a large investment, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia are always eager to conquer the top, even pursuing the policy of naturalizing African and European players to strengthen their human resources. At the 2018 AFF Cup, Vietnam Team started like a dream and finished the group stage with the first place, not once conceding a goal. In the semi-finals and finals, Vietnam Team showed a more great performance when easily defeating the Philippines and Malaysia. It should be emphasized that the two teams mentioned above have a lot of naturalized players, but both became defeated generals of coach Park Hang Seo’s team. Convincingly crowned the champion, Vietnam Team became the king of regional football.

Pic: Hai Dang

Saying that to see that the rise of Vietnam Team has greatly influenced the general picture of regional football and the previous “kings” could not take Vietnam team lightly.

Never before has Vietnam Team played as successfully as in the period of 2018-2022 and the special thing is that Park Hang Seo’s team are always present in the Top 100 on the FIFA rankings and add excitement and motivation to the development of Vietnamese football during the IX term of VFF.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF VIETNAM’S TEAMS IN 2018-2022

Men’s soccer
Men’s national team: crowed the AFF Cup 2018, entered the quarterfinals of the Asian Cup 2019 (when the tournament was expanded to 24 teams), participated in the asian final qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup.
U23 team: Silver medal at Asia U23 2018, entered the semi-finals of men’s football at the 2018 Asian Games, men’s football gold medal at 2 consecutive SEA Games 2019 and 2022.

Women’s football
The women’s national team qualified to the 2023 Women’s World Cup final when they overcame Thailand and Chinese Taipei in the play-offs.
Won 3 consecutive gold medals in women’s football at the SEA Games in 2017, 2019, 2022.

Futsal
Qualified the FIFA Futsal World Cup Finals – Lithuania 2021 for the second time.