No one expected the national women’s football team could play well at the qualifying round of the 2012 London Olympic Football Competition as most of the members remained very young.
However, the girls advanced decisively to the next round as the best team of Group A with three wins and one draw.
Before attending the tournament, the national team’s manager Tran Van Phat had to replace old guards including Kim Chi, Dao Thi Mien, Van Thi Thanh, Ngoc Cham and Mai Lan with young bloods.
The starting line-ups comprise of anonymous names, including Le Thi Thu Huong, Nguyen Thi Hoa, Tran Nguyen Bao Chau, Tran Thi Hong Linh and Bui Thi Nhu. Among them is midfielder Vu Thi Huyen Linh, who experts considered as a player with no skill.
Despite the underestimate of local fans and experts, the players showed a brilliant performance in Taiwan.
Le Thi Thu Huong and Nguyen Thi Hoa scored winning goals, while Vu Thi Huyen Linh becomes the squad’s best midfielder and Bui Thi Nhu built a solid defensive partnership with Nguyen Hai Hoa.
Experts said Chinese manager Tran Van Phat was the one, who contributed the most to the achievement of the team. He helped the squad to improve their fitness and build up their confidence, which are their major weaknesses.
He turned Nguyen Thi Hoa to be the best striker and made the fans delight with a strong central defensive midfielder Nguyen Thi Muon and a smart playmaker Huyen Linh.
Phat still used the same counter-attacking formation of five defenders, three midfielders and one central forwarder with a striker behind in spite of new players, which proved to be the best strategy for the squad.
Phat said the counter-attacking football helped his girls to cruise past Myanmar and Hong Kong, as well as beating arch rivals Thailand.
Thanks to the outstanding performance of the squad, local analysts said a new golden generation of Vietnam women’s football was born.
The Vietnamese national women’s football team came from behind to beat archrivals Thailand 2-1 last week and secured a spot to advance to the next round at the 2012 London Olympics Asian qualifiers, according to TuoiTreNews.
Strikers Nguyen Thi Hoa and Thanh Huong scored the two goals from their counterattack traps in the second half of the game. Earlier, Vietnam’s center back Bui Thi Nhu headed an own goal just two minutes into the match.
It marked the third consecutive win of Vietnam in group A, after pounding Hong Kong 4-0 and 2-0 victory over Myanmar.
