The Southeast Asian Championship came to an official end not long ago, with Thailand defeating Vietnam 1-0 in the second leg final, thus winning 3-2 on aggregate and successfully defending the tournament title! The rapid progress of the Thai team has become a force to be reckoned with in Asian football, and they may cause huge trouble for the Chinese men's football team in the future 2026 World Cup qualifiers!
In the FIFA rankings, Thailand is only 111th and 21st in Asia. Their final opponent, Vietnam, managed to break into the top 100, ranking 96th and 17th in Asia. If you only look at the world rankings, it seems that the Vietnamese team has a better chance of winning. However, Thailand are the reigning champions of the tournament, and they eliminated Vietnam in the last tournament, so against the Vietnamese, Thailand seems to have a little experience.
Sure enough, in the first leg of the two teams, the Vietnamese team, which played at home, did not have much advantage. Although they opened the scoring to take the lead, Thailand managed to reverse the score by scoring two goals in a short period of time through a second-half comeback. Fortunately, in the final moments of the game, Vietnamese substitute defender Vu Van Thanh stepped up and used a corner kick to attack from distance to help Vietnam win the score to 2-2 and avoid losing at home!
Although they failed to win the game, Thailand were able to draw away from Vietnam, which is already considered to be a preemptive opportunity, returning home, they only need to draw their opponents, there is a high probability that they can successfully defend their title. Due to the similar strength of the two teams, the game has been very glue, in the 25th minute, the home team of Thailand took the lead, Van Ma Tan a wonderful long-range shot, pierced the Vietnamese goalkeeper's ten fingers, Thailand broke the deadlock as they wished, and took a 1-0 lead! After the goal, Tantra Wen also made Cristiano Ronaldo's signature celebratory move, adding some extra highlights to the game.
The goal also pushed Vietnam into a corner, and they must score at least two goals in subsequent matches to complete the comeback. The Vietnamese team launched a crazy counterattack in the following game, and they also had more possession advantages, but unfortunately their attack was only blossoming and could not be converted into goals, and watching the game time pass little by little, the mentality of Vietnamese players began to become more and more impatient. In the end, they had to accept the fate of losing 1-0, and Thailand took advantage of this one-goal victory to lift the Southeast Asian Championship trophy again and win their first title in 2023. This once "weak brigade" has become a new emerging force in Asian football!
At the end of this year, the 2026 World Cup qualifiers will begin, and China is likely to meet Thailand. Given the current situation of the two teams, if the national football team plays Thailand again, then the chance of losing is even far greater than winning. For Chinese football, this is also a great irony!