Although the Vietnamese national U-19 football team was empty handed with all three losses at the international Nutifood Cup this week, experts admitted the tournament held in Ho Chi Minh City is a useful chance for the team to grow up.

So, the sponsor Nutifood and the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) announced during the last match that it will organize the tournament annually, after lunar New Year, from now on to create more playing ground for national youth teams.

At the four-team tournament, organized in Ho Chi Minh City from January 6-10, the host Vietnam stands at the bottom with 1-2 loss to AS Roma, 7-0 collapse to Japan, and 2-3 defeat to Tottenham. Young players from Japan are the winners with a total cash prize of US$100,000. Tottenham and AS Roma ranked second and third place respectively.

Before the tournament, Vietnamese fans placed high hopes on victory of the team thanks to their performances at previous events. 16 players of the team are ‘graduates-to-be’ of the first ‘batch’ of the first football academy of Vietnam, Hoang Anh Gia Lai – Arsenal JMG located in the central highland Gia Lai Province.

French coach Graechen Guillaume of the Vietnamese team said, “I am disappointed with the loss but it gave Vietnam useful lessons. We have time to correct and improve ourselves.”

Tottenham coach McDermott told a press meeting, “I can see the happiness of Vietnamese fans on watching the interesting playing style of their team. My players have the chance to experience an emotional style of playing football in Vietnam.”

Recognizing the potentiality of Vietnam’s young players, Japanese coach Suzuki Masakazu announced after the tournament that he had discussed with the Japanese Football Federation and agreed to give the U-19 Vietnam a training trip in Osaka and Tokyo in June to prepare for the Asian U-19 Football Championship to be held in October in Myanmar.

Besides, the U-19 Vietnam will also have other training trips in England in March and Belgium in April.