Vietnam, one of the national football team's top 12 group opponents, is participating in the 2021 Southeast Asian Championships and is currently reaching the semi-finals, competing with Thailand for two legs for final qualification. In the first leg of the match that ended last night, Vietnam played sluggishly, and finally lost 2-0 to Thailand, missing the final with one foot, and the defending champion was beaten back to its original form.
In the group stage, Vietnam played well, beating Laos 2-0, beating Malaysia 3-0, drawing 0-0 with Indonesia, and beating Cambodia 4-0, scoring 9 goals and not conceding 1 goal, and finally falling behind Indonesia in terms of goals, ranking second in the group to advance to the semi-finals.
Vietnam's rivals, Thailand, are the only teams in all teams to win four consecutive games, accumulating 12 points to advance to the semifinals. The two championship-winning favourites met in advance, vietnam was in the ascendant, the opening 13th minute, vietnam broke the siege, the goalkeeper failed to attack, and Thailand's star Song Klasin won the empty goal to take a 1-0 lead.
In the 23rd minute, Thailand extended the score, and Song Krasin scored again to complete the double to help the team lead 2-0. After that, the Vietnamese team fought back madly, the possession rate was dominant, the shot was far away from the goal, and finally there was no way to break the goal, losing with a 0-2 score, and the situation in the final was overshadowed.
The semi-finals were a two-legged elimination system, with Vietnam losing 0-2 in the first leg and being directly beaten back to its original form, close to missing the final.
The Southeast Asian Championship has been held 12 times before, and the Vietnamese team has won two championships in 2008 and 2018, and the last champion was Vietnam. Vietnam's semi-final rivals, Thailand, have won the championship five times, ranking first in history, and Singapore has won the second place four times.
For the national football team, it will play away against Vietnam on February 1 next year (the first day of the Lunar New Year), a match that has attracted the attention of fans of both teams, and national football fans do not want to lose to the biggest fish belly team in the round of 12.
Since 1960, the national football team has maintained a record of total wins against the Vietnamese team, after the 3-2 kill in the 12 rounds in October this year, the number of consecutive wins of the national football team expanded to 10 games, and now the Vietnamese team is in an unstable state, and the national football team led by Li Xiaopeng is stable.