Three Identical Matches and the Midfield Crack in Vietnam's U23 Campaign at the 2026 Asian Games

I still remember sitting in front of the screen in the 63rd minute of the U23 Vietnam versus U23 Uzbekistan match in Group C of the men's football tournament at the 2026 Asian Games. The score was already 0-2. The ball was still in the feet of the red-shirted players more often than the opposition, the short passes were still finding their targets, and on the phone where I keep three data tabs open, Vietnam's possession share had never dropped below parity. But I had been taking notes long enough to notice something uncomfortable: this team held the ball the way a person holds a pen firmly without managing to write a single worthwhile sentence.

Former international Nguyen Tuan Phong called it "three identical matches". Writing in Tuoi Tre, he said U23 Vietnam wasted too many chances. I think he is right, and the more frightening part is the phrase "identical" — because repetition is a signature of a system, not of luck.

A ticket that was not decided by our own hands

U23 Vietnam are through to the quarterfinals. That is a beautiful thing. But the way that ticket arrived tells a different story. Group C closed with Uzbekistan on top and Vietnam advancing, while the result between Kuwait and the Philippines played a decisive role in ensuring that coach Dinh Hong Vinh's side did not have to carry its own fate alone.

I dislike the way people say "self-determination" in youth football. At centralized tournaments, a team's fate is always partly in someone else's hands. But there is one thing entirely within your own hands: the way you play. And the way U23 Vietnam played across three group matches is an image repeated to a worrying degree — good possession, chances created, then everything dropped, plus goals conceded that Tuan Phong himself called "too easy".

Behind that ticket sits a patched-together lineup. The two best centre-backs, Hieu Minh and Nhat Minh, were absent. The staff had to push newcomers such as Duc Anh and Le Nguyen Hoang into the pitch alongside Pham Ly Duc. In midfield, there was no true defensive midfielder — the type like Thai Son, a player who does one job: standing in front of the back line, all match long. Instead, there were two attack-minded midfielders, Xuan Bac and Nguyen Thai Quoc Cuong.

And up front, Dinh Bac was absent. That is the least-mentioned detail, yet possibly the heaviest one.

To understand why, remember a milestone. At the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2026, Vietnam beat South Korea on penalties in the third-place match. That is the standard we set for ourselves. When Tuan Phong says the current squad is "weaker than itself", I read that as a comparison with that milestone, not with any specific opponent.

Three centre-backs, and the gap nobody filled

A back three with high wing-backs is a modern, common and entirely normal choice in Asian youth football. The problem is not the shape. The problem is that the shape requires conditions U23 Vietnam currently lack.

In a back three, the wing-backs stop being full-backs. They are players who run the entire width of the pitch, and when they push up, the space behind them becomes the tastiest morsel on the table. Normally, teams cover that space in one of two ways: a defensive midfielder drops to form a temporary back four, or the wide centre-back actively covers toward the flank.

U23 Vietnam had neither.

Tuan Phong recalls a very specific detail: in the first half, Le Dinh Long Vu's left flank was heavily exploited. Only when Phi Hoang came on did the situation improve. That is a valuable description, because it shows the opponent had read the map of the match before we adjusted. Uzbekistan attacked exactly where a back three is most fragile: behind an advanced wing-back.

I have an odd habit when watching youth football. Instead of following the ball, I follow the space the ball has just left. In this match, every time the ball was circulated to Vietnam's left, I shifted my eyes to the opposite side to see who was covering. The answer was usually: nobody.

The notable part is that the coaching staff read the problem and fixed it. Sending Phi Hoang on was the right call, and it shows the bench can diagnose a match live. But there is a vast difference between fixing a problem and seeing it before it happens. In knockout football, that difference is often the difference between advancing and going home.

A midfield with no gatekeeper

If I had to pick one single detail to explain both conceded goals, I would pick the absence of a genuine defensive midfielder.

Tuan Phong says plainly that Vietnam lacks a Thai Son-type player and seemingly cannot find one. I consider that the most important line in his remarks. It speaks to a systemic issue, not to any individual playing badly.

Let us reconstruct the situation by pure logic. When Vietnam lose the ball in midfield while both wing-backs have pushed up, the back line is down to three, and among those three are centre-backs playing together for the first time. Ahead of them are two midfielders chosen for their attacking qualities, not for their ball-winning. That means there is a window — usually only two or three seconds — in which nobody on the team performs the screening job. In those two or three seconds, a quality side like Uzbekistan is capable of moving the ball into a dangerous position.

Tuan Phong also mentions that the centre-backs did not cover for one another. That is a direct consequence of the same problem. With nobody shielding in front, each centre-back is forced to handle two tasks at once: track the runner and hold position. Nobody does both well within two seconds.

Here I must be explicit about the limits of the analysis. I do not have data on tackles, pressures, or expected goals conceded for U23 Vietnam at this tournament. Three matches is a small sample, and a small sample cannot justify a verdict on a system. I only have what my eyes saw and what a former international said. That is enough to raise a question, not enough to pass sentence.

The concern is not that U23 Vietnam conceded, but that the way they conceded was identical three times in a row. In football, once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is a habit. And habits do not disappear when the referee blows for kick-off.

The problem is not in the legs, it is in the head

There is a lazy explanation for wasted chances: our forwards finish poorly. I do not buy that explanation, at least not entirely.

In football, the quality of a chance matters more than the quantity of chances. A team can take twelve shots without a single genuinely dangerous one. Another team can take three shots, two of which are gilt-edged. When Tuan Phong says "too many chances were wasted", I want to know the quality of those chances. The source does not provide that figure, and I will not invent it.

What I observed, and what is tactically sensible, is this: when a team dominates possession but lacks a clear reference point inside the box, the shots they generate tend to come from outside the area or from narrow angles. Those shots look handsome on a stats sheet, but carry a low conversion probability. That is why a team can dominate possession and still lose 0-2.

Dinh Bac's absence sits exactly here. He is the type of player Tuan Phong calls "class" — someone who can conjure a chance out of nothing, who can break an organized defence with an individual action. Without him, the system still runs, the ball still circulates, but the ending disappears.

In other words, U23 Vietnam's tactics may not be wrong on paper. They merely depend on one specific person. And that is a form of dependence any team would want to avoid.

The contrarian angle: perhaps I am looking in the wrong place

I force myself to write this section, because I know my own habits. I like tidy conclusions. I like identifying a single cause and calling it the root. But football is rarely that tidy.

There is another reading of the last three matches, and it is far from unreasonable. Under that reading, U23 Vietnam's biggest problem is not the back three, but the fact that the coaching staff were placed in a position of patching both departments simultaneously. Losing the two best centre-backs is a matter of fate. Having no defensive midfielder in the squad list is a matter of resources. When both happen at once, no coach in the world fixes it with one tactical session.

Under that reading, Vietnam reaching the quarterfinals with such a squad is an achievement. And Tuan Phong's reference to the Kim Sang Sik era is not a criticism but a way of saying the bar has been raised, and a young squad is being measured against someone else's yardstick.

I find this reading partly persuasive. It is persuasive in placing responsibility more accurately. But it fails on one point: it cannot explain why the team still controlled the ball well and still created chances, while conceding in the same way. If the problem were purely resources, we would not see the repetition. The repetition indicates that some tactical decision is being held constant, and that decision is generating risk.

Data gives me numbers, but an empty stand gives me questions. And the question here is: if you know you lack a screening player, why still pick two attacking midfielders in the middle? If you know the left flank is fragile, why still let it push high in the first half? These are not questions about people. They are questions about choices.

What the quarterfinal will demand

Knockout football is a different world. In the group stage, a defeat can still be forgiven if other results go your way. In the quarterfinals, there are no other results to save anyone.

And the opponent may come from the elite tier of continental youth football — sides like South Korea or Saudi Arabia, with stronger midfields and better physical foundations. Tuan Phong warned about exactly that type of opponent. If the draw sends Vietnam there, every weakness just described will be magnified many times over.

I still hold a recent memory. At the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2026, Vietnam beat South Korea on penalties. I watched that match in a state of disbelief, and I remember the feeling clearly: a team can rise above its own limits on one specific night. In knockout football, one such night is enough.

But to have such a night, a team must prepare for it through what happens beforehand. And what happened beforehand, across the last three matches, was a patched back line, a midfield without a screener, and an attack wasting chances in exactly the same way.

Tactics will go out of date, but the story of belief will not. U23 Vietnam's problem right now is not the belief of the fans. The problem is the team's own belief in the structure it is operating.

Who trains the gatekeeper?

There is a question I could not avoid after hearing Tuan Phong speak about the missing defensive midfielder.

Vietnam produces attacking players. Dinh Bac is one example, and possibly not the only one. Those players attract attention, attract scouts from the J-League, the K-League, and occasionally Europe. They are exportable assets.

But a good defensive midfielder is less famous. He does not score, he has no highlight reel, he does not appear in video compilations. His job is to make others look good, and nobody remembers the face of the person who made them look good.

In a football economy with limited development resources, attention flows toward where the glory is. That is why smaller football nations tend to produce more attackers than defenders. And it may be why Vietnam lacks a screener at exactly the moment it needs one most.

I have no data to prove this pattern. It is a hypothesis, not a conclusion. But one detail makes me believe it: both of the best centre-backs were absent, and their replacements did not have enough time playing together to form a unit. There are talents buried under contemptuous gazes, and I have seen them bloom. But for a defensive talent to bloom, he needs to be given a chance before the team needs him, not at the moment the team needs him.

How we are reading this team

There is something I always want to say when writing about youth football, and this match is the occasion.

We are reading a U23 team with the yardstick of a senior national team. A defeat is called a disaster. A quarterfinal ticket is called a success. The truth lies in between, and that truth is far less attractive: this is a group of players learning to play with one another, under non-ideal conditions, and they are still improving.

But reading them with a bigger yardstick has one benefit. It forces us to ask questions that are normally skipped at youth level. Why can we not produce defensive midfielders? Why were the two best centre-backs absent from the most important tournament? Why can a team that controls the ball well not score?

Those questions are not for a coach. They are for a system.

That is why I like writing about football this way. A match can end in ninety minutes. But the problem it exposes lasts for years.

What remains after three matches

In the second half against Uzbekistan, when Phi Hoang came on and the left flank was patched, I saw something small but valuable: this team can still fix itself. In knockout football, that capacity is worth more than any statistic.

U23 Vietnam will enter the quarterfinals with a patched back line and a midfield without a screener. If Hieu Minh and Nhat Minh return, everything can change. If not, the team will have to find another way to win — through compactness, through lightning counter-attacks, through accepting that they do not need possession to survive.

I wonder: is anyone on the coaching staff thinking about that? And I wonder one more thing, a question I keep for all of us: if this team reaches the semifinals on penalties and one lucky night, will we be willing to look at the cracks still intact in midfield — or will we celebrate and forget again?

People call me a contrarian; I call myself a finder. And what I found after three group matches is neither a disaster nor a success. It is an opportunity: a chance to look squarely at a problem that was placed on the table before the tournament began, and to do something about it before the knockout round does it for us.