Only Vietnam and South Korea achieved perfect results in the U23 Asian qualifiers.

TPO - The U23 Asian qualifiers have just ended and Vietnam is proud to be in the group of 2 teams that won all matches without conceding any goals.

The 11 groups were mostly very tight, leading to many interesting scenarios. Therefore, not many teams kept a clean sheet. For example, Japan - one of the strongest football nations in Asia, a pioneer in youth training and the current U23 Asian champion.

In the last qualifying round, Japan led but could not keep a clean sheet. They conceded 2 goals. The 2024 runner-up Uzbekistan even had to pick the ball out of the net 3 times. And they only advanced thanks to a wild card when they were in the group of 4 second-placed teams with the best results. Iran, Qatar, Jordan, Syria... were also among them when they conceded at least 1 goal in the qualifying round despite still having a full 9 points after 3 wins like Vietnam.

Meanwhile, some teams have very high goal difference and do not concede any goals, but still do not have the full 9 points like Vietnam. They are Australia and China. Both finished the qualifying round with 7 points, winning tickets to the final round.

Japan won all 9 points but could not keep a clean sheet.

If we count the teams that won all their matches and didn’t concede a single goal, only Vietnam and Korea had a perfect record in the qualifying round. Vietnam defeated Bangladesh, Singapore, and Yemen in turn. The team’s score was 4-0. Meanwhile, Korea easily defeated Laos, Macau, China, and Indonesia. They scored 13 goals and didn’t concede a single goal. It can be said that only Vietnam and Korea achieved a perfect record in the qualifying round.

This is also the second most impressive qualifying round in the history of Vietnam's U23 Asian Cup. In the 2020 U23 Asian Cup qualifying round, Vietnam won all 3 matches and did not concede any goals. But at that time, the team of Hoang Duc, Viet Hung and Quang Hai scored 11 goals, defeating Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei to convincingly lead the group.

In the campaign that just ended, perhaps the poor finishing of situations was the reason why Vietnam only scored a total of 4 goals in 3 matches. Surely, the team will have to improve this problem in the coming time.

TEAMS THAT QUALIFY THE U23 ASIA ROUND:

11 group winners: Vietnam, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Syria, Thailand, Kyrgyzstan.

4 best runners-up: China, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, UAE

Source: https://tienphong.vn/chi-viet-nam-va-han-quoc-dat-thanh-tich-hoan-hao-o-vong-loai-u23-chau-a-post1776872.tpo