Thailand U23 vs Vietnam U23

Milliy Stadion is the venue as Thailand U23 and Vietnam U23 go head-to-head in their AFC U23 Asian Cup Group C curtain-raiser.

Thailand enjoyed an utterly impressive Southeast Asian Games campaign before suffering heartbreak in the competition’s final to Vietnam of all teams in May. The ‘War Elephants’ had won four consecutive games at the tournament without conceding before slipping to a narrow 1-0 defeat in the showpiece event. That failure made it successive H2Hs without winning for Thailand (D1, L2), though it was only their second scoring blank in five meetings with Vietnam since 2015. Since the calendar year flipped to 2022, Worrawoot Srimaka’s men have drawn a blank in only three of their nine international fixtures, suggesting they could return to the scoresheet against their neighbours.

In the meantime, Vietnam won the recently completed tournament without conceding a single goal from the group stage to the final. Yet, only twice in their six outings at 2022 Southeast Asian Games had Vietnam scored more than once, highlighting the importance of drawing first blood. Indeed, the ‘Golden Star Warriors’ succumbed to a dreadful 3-0 defeat to their United Arab Emirates counterparts in the build-up to this clash. Despite the UAE’s dominant victory in an international friendly last time, low scoring has been a common theme in Vietnam’s matches thus far this calendar year. Only two of their ten internationals in 2022 have featured over 2.5 goals.