Vietnam U23 vs Korea Republic U23

Stadion Lokomotiv is the venue as Vietnam U23 and the Korea Republic U23 go head-to-head in the second round of the AFC U23 Asian Cup group stage.

Vietnam shared the spoils with their Thailand counterparts in their Group C curtain-raiser. Despite taking the lead in both halves, they had to settle for a 2-2 draw after conceding the equalising goal deep inside the stoppage time. Since lifting the Southeast Asian Games trophy without shipping a single goal throughout the tournament in May, the ‘Golden Star Warriors’ have conceded 2+ goals in both subsequent internationals. That’s not a good sign, as they are about to meet a side they’ve lost to in all three previous H2Hs by 2+ goals ‘to one.’ On the bright side, the abovementioned draw with Thailand arrested Vietnam’s run of three matches in which they scored just one goal.

In the meantime, South Korea enjoyed a flying start to their Group C campaign, as they thrashed Malaysia 4-1 in their opening fixture. Interestingly, three of those five goals arrived beyond the 80th minute, highlighting the potential for a late drama. Since falling to a 2-1 defeat to France in an international friendly in July 2021, the ‘Taegeuk Warriors’ have racked up four consecutive victories, prevailing by a 3+ goal margin on each occasion. In fact, Hwang Sun-hong’s free-scoring lads have bagged a staggering average of 4.5 goals across their last four outings, netting precisely three second-half goals in three of them.