The Vietnamese futsal team encountered difficulties in the play-off round to compete for tickets to the World Cup

Vietnam futsal team in memory of Minh Tri

Pivot Nguyen Minh Tri is the most unfortunate absence of the Vietnam futsal team in the journey to the 2024 Asian futsal finals, and also the futsal World Cup qualifiers.

Minh Tri’s injury caused the Vietnamese futsal team to lose an experienced striker and sharp goal-scoring ability.

For about a decade now, Minh Tri has been an indispensable striker in the campaigns of the Vietnam futsal team. In two previous World Cup appearances, Pivot, born in 1996, always proved his class and scored extremely important goals for the Vietnamese futsal team.

At this year’s Asian futsal finals, the Vietnamese futsal team has 3 pivots: Nguyen Thinh Phat, Dao Minh Quang and Chu Van Tien. However, these strikers still cannot replace Minh Tri’s task. Through 4 matches, we only scored 4 goals.

Looking at the number of opportunities that the Vietnamese futsal team created against opponents, and the modest number of goals as above, it is enough to see that the attack has not met all expectations.

In the decisive match with Uzbekistan, many times the players missed good opportunities, thereby losing the best opportunity to reach the World Cup playground, making the journey here extremely difficult.

The opponents in the play-off round are also very strong

The immediate opponent of the Vietnam futsal team in the play-off match is the Kyrgyzstan futsal team, who lost to Iran with a score of 1-6 in the quarterfinals. However, the strength of this team is not simple that the Vietnamese futsal team can easily defeat.

Kyrgyzstan is the only team in Group C that can defeat defending champion Japan with a score of 3-2, thereby turning this team into a former king after being eliminated in the group stage.

Kyrgyzstan’s loss to Iran in the quarterfinals was also a surprise, as this team was showing an extremely impressive performance in this tournament.

Meanwhile, if they overcome Kyrgyzstan, the Vietnamese futsal team will have to continue to face the winner of the match between Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, these are also two teams that are not easy to beat.

The Iraqi futsal team faced a high-class opponent like the host Thailand, they took a 2-goal lead with extremely uncomfortable playing style and were not inferior to their opponents. Of course, class also helped the Thai futsal team make a spectacular comeback and win 3-2 to win a ticket to the World Cup.

The Afghan futsal team also showed their strength when they passed the group stage, then they lost to Tajikistan in the quarterfinals with a score of 1-2.

Losing to Uzbekistan will make the journey of the Vietnamese futsal team more difficult. Twice before participating in the World Cup, the Vietnamese futsal team won direct tickets, the first time was reaching the semi-finals at the 2016 Asian futsal tournament and the second time was defeating the Lebanese futsal team in the first and second legs ( Due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Asian futsal tournament was not organized to participate in the 2021 Futsal World Cup.