FIFA honours Vietnamese football following World Cup feat

The International Football Federation (FIFA) ran an article entitled “World Cup successes inspire ambitious Vietnam” on its website on January 2 to honour the historic World Cup achievements that the Southeast Asian country attained in 2016.

U-19 Vietnam celebrate after making it through to 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

In the article, FIFA mentioned the success of Vietnam’s futsal team as they overcame four-time World Cup participants and titleholder Japan on penalties to finish among the top four in last February’s 2016 AFC Futsal Championship and book a place in the 2016 FIFA Futsal World Cup seven months later.

Vietnam then proved in Colombia that their Asian achievements had not been a flash in the pan, reaching knockout stage in their World Cup debut with a shock 4-2 win over Guatemala. Despite losing the quarterfinal against Russia, Vietnam’s efforts were recognised with the fair-play prize from FIFA.

In addition to praising Vietnam’s futsal achievement, the FIFA post also referred to the impressive showing of the country’s U-19 team which had qualified for the prestigious FIFA U-20 World Cup, scheduled in the Republic of Korea this year, with an impressive preliminary campaign that included an unexpected victory over tournament hosts, Bahrain.

The article also quoted President of Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), Le Hung Dung as saying that after competing in AFC finals a number of times, Vietnam finally realised its World Cup dream, which was evidence of success in the VFF’s long-term strategy of special focus on youth training.

It cited Dung’s opinion that the experience gained from the upcoming World Cup campaign will be invaluable for young Vietnamese players’ future development, as well as for the advancement of Vietnam’s senior national team.

Concluding the article, FIFA hailed the U-20 World Cup debut merely as the “beginning of a sustained run of success” for Vietnamese football in the future.

(Source: NDO)