According to information from the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), on Tuesday, the 30th SEA Games organisers released the competition schedule for the 56 sports included in the Games slated for late November, including both the times and venues for men’s and women's football.
Accordingly, men's football will feature 11 teams being divided into groups A and B with five teams in the former and six teams in the latter. The group stage matches will start on November 25 and end on December 5. The semi-finals take place on December 7, while the third-place playoff and the final will be held on December 10.
The three stadiums selected for men's soccer venues are Rizal Memorial, UMAK Football and Binan Football, in which Rizal Memorial is known as the Philippines home field and will be the venue for a series of important matches, including the opening ceremony, semi-finals, the bronze medal match and the final.
Notably, all three stadiums have artificial turf playing fields. Though meeting the standard recognised by the Asian Football Confederation, artificial turf fields are expected to cause difficulties for the participating teams, including Vietnam, as players usually compete on natural grass.
The situation requires teams to adjust their plans and the VFF and head coach Park Hang-seo will also regulate the training plan for Vietnam U22s to find the best solution to help players quickly adapt to artificial turf.
In the immediate future, VFF will send staff to the Philippines to survey the venues. VFF Secretary General Le Hoai Anh said that the coaching staff will have a plan adjustment. As expected, the team will arrive in the Philippines a few days earlier than the set plan to familiarise the yards.
According to the original plan, Vietnam U22s will attend the BTV Cup friendly tournament from November 3 to 6 in Binh Duong province, on natural grass. After that, they will start conditioning for the artificial turf surface.
The host country also officially decides on the number of players per men’s football squad. Each team is allowed to register a maximum of 20 players, including two players of over 22 years old. The VFF expects to bring 22 or 23 players to the Philippines before officially announcing the final 20-member squad.
To realise the target of bringing home their first ever gold medal at SEA Games, Vietnam U22s are preparing for the tournament with their second summon in July, from July 22 to 24 in Hanoi.
Coach Park continues to carry out the inspection, evaluation and selection for Vietnam U22s by calling up more new faces among the 26 players in this short-term summon. Under the plan, Vietnam U22s are training at the PVF Youth Football Training Centre in Hung Yen province from July 22 to 24. They will have a training match with the V.League 1 team Viettel on Wednesday afternoon.
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The Vietnam national women’s team during a training session at Hanoi’s My Dinh Youth Football Centre on July 23. (Photo: Vietnam Football Federation)
On the women’s side, the national squad are in their third training week in preparation for the target of defending their fifth title at the 2019 SEA Games. Women's football at the 30th SEA Games features eight teams divided into two groups of four. Group stage matches will take place from November 28 to December 4. The semi-finals take place on December 6, while the bronze medal and gold medal matches will be held on December 9.
The venues for women's football matches are the same three stadiums as for men's football (Rizal Memorial, UMAK Football and Binan Football), in which UMAK Football will be the venue for the bronze medal and gold medal matches. Like their male counterparts, coach Mai Duc Chung’s side will also have to adjust their training plan to adapt to the playing conditions on artificial turf.
Chung said that he had finished the physical training scheme for his players and that the team is in a good mood before going to Japan for further training. Under the plan, the national women's team will go to Cam Pha, Quang Ninh, on July 24 to play a friendly with local Quang Ninh Coal women's club. The team will return to Hanoi the following day to rest before getting back to training on July 26.
On July 29, Chung and his players will set off for Japan. They will be stationed at Fukushima and are expected to play three friendly matches with local teams.
The time and place for men's and women's football group stage draw at the SEA Games 2019 has yet to be decided by the organisers.
The 30th SEA Games will take place from November 30 to December 11. The Vietnamese sport delegation is expected to send 627 athletes out of the total 890 registered to the Games.
