Farewell gift for coach Mai Duc Chung

The Vietnamese women's team will face Japan in the final round of the second qualifying round for the 2024 Olympics. This will also be the last time coach Mai Duc Chung leads the Vietnamese team before his contract expires.

Huynh Nhu and her teammates will find it difficult to win when their opponents are too strong. Japan is the number 1 women's football team in Asia and is ranked 8th in the FIFA rankings, while the position of the Vietnamese team is 34th. At the 19th ASIAD, Japan did not use its strongest force but still won the gold medal.

Vietnam women's team faces a big challenge named Japan.

After the first two rounds, the Japanese team won all matches and ranked first in Group C. The Vietnamese and Uzbekistan women's teams had the same 3 points. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team were on top thanks to a better sub-index.

However, the Vietnamese women's team has very little chance of passing the second qualifying round of the 2024 Paris Olympics. The defeat against Uzbekistan puts Huynh Nhu and her teammates at a disadvantage. If they want to keep the second place in the group, the Vietnamese women's team must score points against Japan. This is very unlikely to happen.

The difference in skill level between the two teams is too great. At the 19th Asian Games, the Japanese team sent out their second team but easily defeated the Vietnamese team 7-0. In the 2024 Olympic qualifiers, they used their best team so the difficulty of this challenge is even greater.

Facing a superior opponent, the Vietnamese team aims for the "best possible" result. The farewell gift for coach Mai Duc Chung will be a performance with the best of their ability, with the determination of Huynh Nhu and her teammates.

Japan vs Vietnam form

The Japanese women's team has been in impressive form since the 2023 World Cup. They have only lost one match, which was against Sweden.

After this tournament, the team from the land of the rising sun played 9 more matches and almost all of them were big wins. They scored 56 goals and the only match where the Japanese women's players scored less than 4 goals was the recent 2-0 victory over Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese women's team has been on the decline since the 2023 World Cup. Coach Mai Duc Chung and his team were eliminated early at the 19th Asian Games, lost to Uzbekistan in the opening match of the second qualifying round for the 2024 Olympics before beating India 3-1.