The Vietnamese women’s football team train in South Korea to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics third qualifying round. Photo vff.org.vn

 

Football

HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese women’s football team are ready to face Myanmar at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020’s third qualifying round in South Korea today.

The match will take place at Jeju World Cup Stadium.

Việt Nam only need to win this match to secure a ticket to the next round as one of two best teams of Group A.

Việt Nam are in Group A with South Korea, Myanmar and North Korea. However, North Korea withdrew from the event for an undisclosed reason, making qualifying for the next round that much easier.

“We will try our best to beat Myanmar and then the match with South Korean will only be a formality as we will have won the right to enter the play-off tournament,” said coach Mai Đức Chung.

Chung said his team are very eager and confident to play their opening match of the event following their outstanding performance at the AFF Cup 2019 and SEA Games 30 in which they won both events.

Việt Nam are considered better than Myanmar, as they defeated them 4-0 to top Group B in the AFF Cup 2019, before winning the tournament.

In Group A’s opening match, hosts South Korea crushed Myanmar 7-0 on February 3.

Myanmar have all the key players that competed in the SEA Games 30 in the Philippines last December in which they won the bronze medal, while the Vietnamese side is mostly made up of the squad from the same tournament, except midfielder Chương Thị Kiều who hasn’t recovered from her injury in the regional event.

Though they lost heavily to South Korea, Myanmar are confident ahead of the match with Việt Nam.

Striker Yee Yee Oo said she believed in Myanmar’s abilities and while taking three points against Việt Nam wouldn't be easy, Myanmar would make every effort to reach their target.

Yee said the match with South Korea was a very difficult challenge for her team. Myanmar didn’t play well in the cold weather and South Korea were too strong. Her team got a lesson from the loss with South Korea and they would try to improve in the upcoming match.

In the Olympic qualifiers, the eight strongest teams in Asia are divided into two groups.

The teams will play in a round-robin format from February 3-9 to decide the top two teams from each group for the play-off tournament.

In the play-off tournament, each team will have a home game and an away leg. The winners of each play-ff match will be the Asian representatives at the Olympics, together with hosts Japan. — VNS