The Vietnamese women’s football team slipped six notches to 35th position in the latest women’s world ranking for the first quarter of 2016 announced by the International Football Federation (FIFA) on March 25.

Vietnam’s drop on the world ladder came as no surprise as the national team performed unsuccessfully at the third qualifying round for the 2016 Rio Olympics, which was held in Osaka, Japan earlier this month.

Playing against Asia’s strongest opponents, including Australia, Japan, China, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of Korea, proved to be an extremely tough challenge for the team coached by Mai Duc Chung.

Losing all five matches, Vietnam lost 30 points and now stands at 35th place in the world rankings with 1,620 points.

The team’s ranking in Asia was also considerably affected as they dropped one notch to seventh, behind Australia (fifth in the world, 2,014 points), Japan (seventh in the world, 1,983 points), the DPRK (ninth, 1,952 points), China (12th, 1,918 points), the ROK (17th, 1,837 points) and Thailand (32nd, 1,645 points).

The US remained firmly on top of the world with 2,174 points, followed by Germany with 2,117 points, France with 2,068 points and England with 2,033 points.

The World Cup dream of Vietnamese football has been realised by the national futsal team, a stunning achievement making home fans proud and taking international observers from surprise to admiration.

However, a lot of work remains for the team so that the upcoming trip to Colombia this September will not be a mere sight-seeing journey.

Vietnam hosted the AFC Futsal Championship for the first time in 2005. It was also the debut of the sport in the country, and it came as little surprise that Vietnam was disqualified in the preliminary stage. In the next five tournaments, Vietnam reached the AFC finals just once (in 2010), while failing to break through the qualification round in four other editions (2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012).

The team’s poor international performance at that time made them little known to local fans. Information about domestic futsal competitions could only be found in the brief sport news category, with several clubs like Thai Son Bac and Thai Son Nam.

Vietnamese futsal has begun to draw more attention from domestic media as well as football lovers since the national team, as the host team, brilliantly made it through to the quarterfinals of the 2014 AFC Championship.

In 2015, Vietnamese futsal continued to hit additional milestones as Thai Son Nam excelled beyond expectation, winning the overall bronze medal at the AFC Futsal Clubs Championship in Iran. The same year, the Vietnamese futsal team officially booked a ticket to the 2016 AFC Championship Finals after finishing among the top four at the AFF Futsal Championship in Bangkok, Thailand, which also functioned as the qualification tournament for the 2016 AFC finals.

From a little known sport, futsal has now become a focus across the country. Local fans, who are used to watching football matches on grass, have been keeping a close eye on futsal players “burning themselves” on indoor pitch.

After the stunning victory against Japan’s futsal team, Vietnamese futsal flooded newspapers in Vietnam as well as social networks. The historic feat of a small team invested in by Tran Anh Tu and coached by Spanish Bruno Garcia is even more impressive considering Vietnam’s indoor football stems from an amateur background, and has only been organized as a professional sport for just over a decade.

Vietnamese futsal players always demonstrated the fighting spirit of warriors in each of their matches at the 2016 AFC Championship. Despite showing progress day by day, Vietnamese futsal is still far off from the remaining four World Cup teams of the Asian zone – Thailand, Australia, Uzbekistan and Iran. However, futsal has developed very quickly and gradually overcome the other sports to which attention was paid in the past. The national futsal team coursed through the group-stage qualification of the 2016 AFC Futsal Championship with two wins and one loss before beating Japan 2-1 in a tense penalty shootout after a 4-4 draw in the quarterfinals to secure an official 2016 World Cup slot, granted to each of the four semifinalists and the winner of play-off matches among the four losers of the quarterfinals.

After this incredible feat, Vietnamese futsal is sure to find a place in the hearts of local fans, and it is time the sport received adequate investment and attention. Despite being an indoor event, the futsal players’ victory still has a huge meaning and value contributing to promoting Vietnam to international friends and functioning as a lesson of experience for their football colleagues in fulfilling their long-standing dreams.

Small-field football (futsal) is not a small game. If success can be found in futsal, we can better prepare for a bigger game – large-field football – in which there still remains numerous limitations for both the national team and the country’s top-tier league, the V-League.

Source NDN

Although the chances of Vietnam reaching the final round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup/2019 Asian Cup joint qualifiers are slim, Vietnam will try to beat Iraq in the final match of the event’s second qualifying round to be held in Iran today, according to Vietnamese coach Nguyễn Hữu Thắng.

Vietnam’s 4-1 victory over Chinese Taipei on March 24 is a driving force for the team in their match with Iraq. Meanwhile, Iraq has had a change in coaching. The team’s coach, Yahya Alwan, resigned following the 2-2 draw with Thailand on March 24. Abdul Ghani Shahad took charge of the Iraqi team.

Vietnam now have seven points after five games, standing third in Group F. Thailand took the lead with 14 points. Iraq came second with nine points, whereas Chinese Taipei remained at the bottom with zero points.

The group winners and four best runners-up (12 teams total) will advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final qualifying round for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots plus one slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup.

If Iraq beat Vietnam, the team will likely be one of four best runners-up to advance to the event’s next round.

If Vietnam beat Iraq, the team will rank second in the group, but the chances of qualifying for the next round depend on many factors. Other group runners-up such as Oman, China and North Korea must lose for the Vietnamese team to advance.

Before the match takes place, players of the two teams will wear black bands on their arms and hold a moment of silence in memory of the recent terrorist bomb attack in Iraq on March 25.

To prepare for the match, Vietnam were presented at Iran on Saturday. They had several light training sessions at their hotel and practised at the 8,000-seat Ghavamin Stadium yesterday. The match will be run by Australian coach Peter Green.

Source DT