At 20:30 Beijing time on December 12, 2021, the third round of Group B of the Southeast Asian Championship group stage began, with Vietnam playing against Malaysia. In the first half, Nguyen Duong Hai and Nguyen Duong Phuc scored two goals in four consecutive minutes, and in the 88th minute of the second half, Nguyen Hoang Duc scored another goal to defeat Malaysia 3-0.
Currently, Vietnam ranks 99th in the world and Malaysia ranks 154th in the world. Vietnam beat Laos 2-0 in the first round of Group B and then bye in the second round. Malaysia beat Cambodia 3-1 in the first round and Laos 4-0 in the second round. Considering that Malaysia and Indonesia will also have a bye, this match of Vietnam is also the first battle in the group.
In terms of starting lineups, Vietnam basically continued the lineup of the Round of 12, but against Southeast Asian teams, Vietnam's formation basically arranged a 433 or 352 formation that was mainly offensive.
After the start of the game, the Vietnamese team occupied the initiative on the field, and in the first 30 minutes, although Malaysia played passively, the formation position at the defensive end was not bad, basically did not give the Vietnamese team too much loophole. But in the 31st minute, Vietnam played a quick counter-attack, and finally Nguyen Chung Anh assisted Nguyen Quang Hoi to take a 1-0 lead.
This is not the end, just 4 minutes later, taking advantage of the Malaysian team's unstable foothold, Nguyen Siu Hai, who has just scored a goal, assisted Nguyen Gong Fung to score a second goal.
In the second half, although malaysia made successive substitutions in order to change the situation on the field, the Vietnamese players also made personnel adjustments, Nguyen Thanh Ling replaced the goal hero Nguyen Gong Phuong, Nguyen Van Quan and Bae Jin Dung replaced Nguyen Quan Hai and Nguyen Thanh Jong, who played well in the first half.
Although the Malaysian team wants to save the defeat, it is helpless to be too different from the Vietnamese team in terms of strength. In the 88th minute, Nguyen Joon Anh assisted Nguyen Hoang Duc to score another goal. In the end, Vietnam defeated Malaysia 3-0, achieving two consecutive wins in this tournament. At present, with a score of 6 points, it is tied with Indonesia and Malaysia for the first place in the group. In terms of the strength of the Vietnamese team, it is the favorite team to win the championship.
This game also set 3 new records. First, since losing to Malaysia in the semi-finals of the 2014 Southeast Asian Championships, the two teams have met four times in the tournament, and today this is the fifth time, Vietnam has remained unbeaten in 5 games; second, Vietnam has maintained a new record of 11 unbeaten games in regular time since the 2016 Southeast Asian Championships; third, this match is Malaysia's first defeat in this tournament.