Losing to Uzbekistan, Vietnam competed for World Cup tickets through the Play off round

Despite leading against Uzbekistan, Vietnam was defeated 2-1 by their opponents and is now waiting for the Play off round of the four losing teams in the quarterfinals. It’s doubly difficult.

Vietnam’s top opponent in the Play off round is Kyrgyzstan, the team that defeated defending champion Japan 3-2 in the group stage.

Uzbekistan, a top 3 power in Asia, seemed like Vietnam could “solve” it. But no Uzbekistan has a higher level and has successfully gone upstream. A dramatic match when the two teams played a dedicated style of futsal, constantly shooting at each other’s goals.

Goalkeeper Ho Van Y excellently saved a series of shots from all angles, but towards the end of the match, the entire Vietnamese team was exhausted, including Ho Van Y… also exhausted and creating conditions. Favorable for Uzbekistan’s efforts to successfully reverse upstream.

A very good match, in the 17th minute, from Manh Dung’s corner kick, the ball was put in front of Elmorodov’s goal, Minh Quang passed it in for Thinh Phat to cushion the goal.

Vietnam maintained this advantage until the end of the first half. In the second half, Uzbekistan increased the level of attack, pushing the game very high. Vietnam was caught up in this style of play and exhausted in the last 10 minutes of the match. This created an opportunity for Uzbekistan to easily take advantage of Vietnam’s mistakes.

In the 34th minute, again from a corner kick, Rakhmatov “injected” the tip of his shoe, the ball flew high and landed exactly as intended. Above, Ropiev dived down and made a very tight volley down the middle. The ball bounced on the ground and then bounced up and hit the crossbar… and flew into the net. The ball’s flight trajectory was so strange that Ho Van Y couldn’t react in time.

Uzbekistan continued to increase the pace of the match to wear out Vietnam’s strength faster, and what happened happened. In the last minute of the match, Juraev nailed the match with an angled shot from the near sideline. The ball flew low into the post, almost hitting goalkeeper Ho Van Y, setting the score 2-1.

Losing to Uzbekistan was expected because this opponent was too strong.

Thus, Vietnam is waiting to compete in the Play off round for the four losing teams in the quarterfinals. Specifically, the opponent that Vietnam met in the first Play off round was Kyrgyzstan, the team that defeated defending champion Japan 3-2 in the first match of Group C.

As a result of the remaining three quarterfinals, Thailand beat Iraq 3-2, Iran destroyed Kyrgyzstan 6-1, Tajikistan beat Afghanistan 2-1 after two extra periods.

Thus, the opponents in the Play off round also have a very “bone” chance of winning Vietnam’s World Cup ticket, only 50-50.

Semi-final schedule on April 26: Thailand-Tajikistan (18 hours), Iran-Uzbekistan (21 hours)