Tran sees toughest test in Kuwait
Ho Chi Minh City: Vietnam Football Federation’s Executive Committee Member Tran Anh Tu believes Kuwait are the toughest group foes for the Vietnam…
The tournament hosts were pooled in Group A alongside Tajikistan, Iraq and last edition’s quarter-finalists Kuwait during a draw last month in Ho Chi Minh City which will be the tournament city.
Tran (pictured), also a Member of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) Futsal Committee who was present during the draw, told The-AFC.com:
“The Vietnam team will be in a training camp from 16 March. We will travel for 12 days in Spain from 9 April and we will have five games against clubs in the first division.
“We also have a new coach, Bruno Garcia. He is a good coach from Spain and I hope he will help our team to improve the position of our team.”
“Kuwait are a strong team although we won over them in two games before they participated in the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand.
“I know that Kuwait are better than two years ago because they have a good Spanish coach too and it is too difficult to win against them as we did in 2012. I think the Kuwait team are the best team in Group A at the moment.”
Tran, who is also the Ho Chi Minh City FA President and Thai Son Nam Futsal Club Chairman, is confident the continental futsal competition will give a boost to the Vietnamese game and happy to note the local community is reacting in an encouraging manner to the competition.
“Futsal is getting more and more popular in Vietnam and is attractive to the media. A proof of this is that many journalists attended the draw ceremony. This competition will make more Vietnamese youth play futsal which is the desire of the VFF as well as AFC and FIFA.
“This is a big event. Our government always supports sport events like this. The media is ready to broadcast the matches and news of this competition. Our futsal fans are also eager to watch the games, especially those of their national team.”
The tournament’s other groups, Group B, consists of Iran, Australia, China and Indonesia, while Thailand, Lebanon Chinese Taipei and Malaysia make up Group C. The Group D contenders are Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Korea Republic.
The top three ranked teams from the previous edition, Japan, Thailand and Iran, qualified automatically to the finals while the Vietnamese qualified as hosts. The other 12 teams qualified from their respective qualifying zones to complete the line up for the 16-team competition, which will be held from 30 April to 10 May.
