Vietnam U23 defeated Indonesia U23 in the final match of the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship at Bung Karno Stadium. With this victory, coach Kim Sang Sik's team set a record that is very difficult to break when winning the regional tournament three times in a row.
U23 Vietnam impressed at the U23 Southeast Asian tournament (Photo: VFF).
Chinese media also paid special attention to this event. Newspaper 163 published an article praising U23 Vietnam with the title: “Behind Vietnam’s three consecutive championships is a 10-year systematic revolution.”
The Chinese newspaper wrote: “Vietnam U23 has won the Southeast Asian U23 tournament for the third consecutive time. A new king of Southeast Asian youth football has been born.
Indonesia U23, with the presence of naturalized striker Jens Raven, swept the tournament but was defeated by the good system of Vietnam U23 in the final match. Once again, Vietnamese youth football showed strong progress, starting from the establishment of Hoang Anh Gia Lai JMC Academy, then PVF Youth Football Academy.
After U23 Vietnam held U23 Korea to a draw in the 2022 AFC U23 Championship, the Korean press exclaimed that Vietnamese football could no longer be underestimated. Stars like Cong Phuong and Quang Hai are typical representatives of Vietnam's youth training system.
Last March, U23 China drew U23 Vietnam at home. That match exposed a harsh reality: Chinese teams (who had a 61-year winning streak against Vietnamese football) have only won 1, drawn 2 and lost 4 times to Vietnamese youth teams since 1994.
Vietnam U23 holds the record of winning the Southeast Asian U23 Championship three times in a row (Photo: CNN Indonesia).
What makes Chinese fans even more bitter is that in the 2014 U19 Asian Cup, the Vietnamese players born in 1995 defeated China to qualify for the next round. 10 years later, 8 of the players who started that match are still in the Vietnamese national team. Meanwhile, none of the young Chinese players from that time have been able to stay in the national team.
While more and more Vietnamese players are going abroad to play in the Portuguese or Japanese championships, Chinese football is stuck in a vicious circle, with clubs owing salaries for a long time, and youth coaches still struggling with old-fashioned training methods, preferring to play long balls.
After the success of the U23 Southeast Asian tournament, U23 Vietnam will enter two important tournaments: the U23 Asian qualifiers in September and the 33rd SEA Games in December.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/bao-trung-quoc-ca-ngoi-ky-luc-rat-kho-pha-vo-cua-u23-viet-nam-20250802141253550.htm
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