Keep your feet on the ground

In theory, the US team is stronger than the Dutch and Portuguese women's teams. According to common logic, if the Vietnamese women's team causes trouble for the US team, it can also cause trouble for the two European teams mentioned above.

Vietnam women's team (red shirt) in the match against the US women's team

But football is not like mathematics. In football, the transitive property does not hold. Every football match is different. Different times, different opponents, and the strategies that teams have for each other are also different.

The reason why the Vietnamese women's team caused difficulties for the US team is because we learned a lesson from our neighbor Thailand at the 2019 World Cup. Compared to Thailand 4 years ago, the Vietnamese women's team entered the match against the US team more cautiously, using a much thicker defense.

Thailand made a mistake at the 2019 World Cup by "daring" to play offensively against the US team. Playing fast, attacking against the strongest team in the world , pushing the formation high to find a goal against the world's number 1 team is no different than... committing suicide.

The Vietnamese women's football team studied that carefully and focused only on defense when facing the US team at this year's World Cup.

But if we study the Americans, it is likely that the remaining opponents in Group E, including Portugal and the Netherlands, will also study us, through the above match.

Former Vice President in charge of VFF's professional affairs, Duong Vu Lam, commented: "Surely Portugal and the Netherlands have recognized the Vietnamese women's team. They have seen where we are strong and where we are weak." The strength of the Vietnamese women's team is certainly spirit, while the weakness, perhaps not difficult to see, is physique and the ability to defend against high balls.

In the high balls in the recent match against the US team, except for goalkeeper Kim Thanh who had the advantage of using her hands in the 16m50 area, the remaining players in the defense of the Vietnamese women's team could hardly touch the ball in the aerial disputes.

It is probably not difficult for the Netherlands and Portugal to see this point. They may have had in mind the most effective plan to approach the goal of the team led by coach Mai Duc Chung.

Vietnam women's team (right)

Another disadvantage of the Vietnamese women's team is that, in theory, the deeper the tournament goes, the stronger teams will get into a better rhythm and "warm up" more, thanks to the extra time they have to play together. On the contrary, the deeper the tournament goes, the more the Vietnamese women's team will be at a disadvantage physically, because the foundation and qualities of Vietnamese women's players are not equal to those of women's players in Europe, North America and South America.

Physical strength plays an extremely important role in marking and following opponents of the Vietnamese women's team. Therefore, this will be the biggest challenge for coach Mai Duc Chung in the coming days.

The World Cup arena is certainly not simple, that is why coach Mai Duc Chung is still very cautious up to now. The more successful the Vietnamese women's team is in the opening match against the US team, the more careful they need to be in the next matches, against opponents who understand us better and better!

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