Vietnam lost 0-2 on Monday to Malaysia at the ongoing 2014 Southeast Asian U-22 Football Championship after their coach said confidently that they would beat the Malaysians. 

The Vietnamese sent U-19 players to the football (soccer) tournament that takes place from August 8 to 23 in Brunei while Malaysia use U-21 players for the event.

Vietnam created two clear chances in the 26th and 38th minutes of the first half but failed to convert any of them.

In general, they displayed loose coordination between the lines.

Three minutes into the second half, Nordin chose his right position to jump up and head home the opening goal for Malaysia from a corner kick.

In the 61st minute, Nurshamil scored the second goal to secure his team’s victory after a Vietnamese defender was unable to clear the ball in the box.

Despite the loss, French coach Guillaume Graechen of the Vietnamese side defended his decision to put seven new players in the starting line-up.

“The goal of my team at this tournament is to play as well as we can in order to prepare for the Southeast Asian U-19 Football Championship in Hanoi in September and the finals of the Asian U-19 Football Championship in Myanmar in October,” he stressed.

A day before the match against Malaysia, the French coach predicted that Vietnam would beat Malaysia as they have more qualified players, especially fast strikers.

He added confidently that Vietnam would create more space to defeat the Malaysians. In the opening game with Singapore on August 9, Vietnam won 4-0.

Speaking to the media after the clash with Vietnam, Malaysian coach Razip Ismail revealed his secret, “Malaysia broke Vietnam’s style of play by locking the area in front of the Malaysian box. It made the Vietnamese be unable to coordinate well there.”

Vietnam were drawn in Group B with Cambodia, 2002 champions Indonesia, defending champions and hosts Brunei, Singapore, and Malaysia. All eleven teams of the Southeast Asian region take part in the biennial tournament this year.

Most players of the Vietnamese U-19 team are trainees of the first course of the football academy Hoang Anh Gia Lai – Arsenal JMG based in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai.

They have completed six out of seven years of their training program at the Arsenal-supported football academy, which was established in 2007.

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