Cong Phuong’s shine

The surprise draw against Cambodia U23 and Thailand U23’s close victory over Laos U23 made U23 Malaysia fall to the second place in Group B. That means, U23 Malaysia will meet U23 Vietnam in the semi-finals of the 31st SEA Games.

Based on the history of confrontation, U23 Vietnam has met Malaysia U23 3 times. In 2013, at the SEA Games, U23 Malaysia won 2-1 against U23 Vietnam. But 2 years later, with Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong, U23 Vietnam won both times against Malaysia U23 in the Asian U23 qualifier to the SEA Games.

Accordingly, in the first match taking place in the 2016 Asian U23 qualifying round, U23 Vietnam defeated U23 Malaysia with a score of 2-1. The people who scored for U23 Vietnam at that time were Cong Phuong, Huy Toan in the 37th and 44th minutes. Thanks to those two goals, U23 Vietnam successfully upstream against U23 Malaysia.

Not stopping there, at the 2015 SEA Games held in Singapore after that, U23 Vietnam even beat Malaysia U23 with a score of 5-1. It would not be too much to call Cong Phuong a hero, the factor that made the biggest difference, contributing to the decision to help U23 Vietnam win on Bishan at that time. This individual player from Nghe An has perhaps the most impressive performance since he emerged in the colors of HAGL Academy team Arsenal JMG, U19 Vietnam and HAGL first team.

Not only did Cong Phuong show his cunning in two moves just enough to earn penalties, bring open goals and 3-1, accuracy when raising the score to 2-0. The striker wore the number 10 shirt but also showed the improvisation of a pitch artist with a beautiful free kick, scoring the fourth goal for U23 Vietnam.

But besides Cong Phuong, his other teammates also had a great day of competition. Goalkeeper Minh Long proved to be sure in entering and exiting phases, pouring people to block, Ngoc Hai continued to excel in his role as a stepping stone, commanding the defense and being the spiritual leader of the team.

In the middle of the field, Huy Toan deserves to be the steel fist of U23 Vietnam, with situations to participate in an effective attack. If it weren’t for the excessive strictness of the referees in an unclear offside penalty situation, the Lam Dong player would have opened the scoring right from the 11th minute, not have to wait until the beginning of the second half to fill in. name on the electronic board with the penalty to increase the gap to three goals.

After 7 years, U23 Vietnam met U23 Malaysia again. But in the past 3 years, Coach Park Hang-seo has also faced Malaysia many times from the AFF Cup to the World Cup qualifiers. As a result, Malaysia lost 4 and drew only 1 time against Vietnam by Mr. Park.