Vietnam’s U20 women’s team actively prepares for the 2024 Women’s U20 Asian Cup
From January 15, the Vietnam U20 women’s team under the guidance of head coach Akira Ijiri began the training process at the Vietnam Youth Football Training Center, preparing for the 2024 Women’s U20 Asian Cup in Uzbekistan on the upcoming March.
18/01/2024 12:12:17
According to the draw results, the Vietnam U20 women’s team will compete in Group B with Japan, DPR Korea and China. This is considered a difficult group for coach Akira Ijiri and his team when U20 Japan and U20 DPR Korea are the defending champions and runners-up, China is also an experienced opponent in this tournament. “At this time, we can see that the 3 opponents in the group are all strong teams, ranked high in the world and more qualified than the Vietnam National Team”, head coach of the Vietnam U20 women’s team identified.
In another aspect, this is also an opportunity for young players. “We will play our best. The whole team will not give up because of difficulties, on the contrary, this is a good opportunity to meet strong opponents. We will compete and show the Vietnamese spirit,” Mr. Akira Ijiri said.
As for the goals at the tournament, the Japanese coach said: “I have been with Vietnamese football for 5 years, and I have 3 main goals. The first thing is to train young players for the national team, developing players for the future 5 to 10 years from now. Second, I hope the team will be able to get as many points as possible in this tournament. Finally, I also hope to be able to train more Vietnamese coaches through direct coaching at these tournaments, thereby conveying the modern way of playing football in Japan and the world”.
In this gathering, coach Akira Ijiri and his colleagues only summoned 23 players, including the 5 youngest players who are only 17 years old. “According to the plan, we will divide it into 2 periods. In period 1, I will call up young players to try out. Players with previous experience will continue to be called up in the next period”.
