Vietnamese media: Vietnam U22 shows a mature mentality and continues its advantage over the Chinese youth team
6686 Sports News on November 12 According to Vietnamese media SOHA, in the 2025 Panda Cup International Youth Football Invitational Tournament, the Vietnam U22 national team seized the key opportunity and defeated the Chinese U22 team 1-0 in the away game. Not only did the victory "revenge" the shame of last year's defeat, but it also continued the psychological advantage against the Chinese team in recent years.
The report pointed out that the Vietnam U22 team led by coach Ding Hongrong showed impressive discipline and self-confidence. Although at a disadvantage in terms of physical confrontation and physical fitness, the Vietnamese team was proactive from the beginning, adopted a mid-to-high pressing strategy, dared to fight, and transitioned smoothly between offense and defense.
Both sides were evenly matched in the first half. The Chinese team created threats through the wing many times, but Vietnam's defense line, especially the two central defenders, always remained highly focused and filled in tight positions without leaving any obvious gaps for the opponent. Although the Vietnamese team had fewer attacking opportunities, it made the home team's goalkeeper break out in cold sweat many times at the end of the first half. The cooperation between the frontcourt players gradually opened up the situation, and finally broke the deadlock in the 81st minute: a precise direct pass to the ribs ripped open the defense. The Chinese defender made a mistake in clearing the ball. Young forward Fan Mingfu calmly pushed the far corner and scored the only goal of the game.
It is worth mentioning that Gao Wenping, who served as goalkeeper in this game, also performed well. He made many key saves and became an important contributor to the team's clean sheet.
Vietnamese media stated that this victory was not only a strong response to the 1-2 defeat in 2024, but also further consolidated the Vietnamese youth team’s record advantage against the Chinese team in recent years. Since 2016, Vietnam U22 has achieved a good record of 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss against China U22.
More importantly, this campaign fully demonstrated the significant progress of Vietnam's young generation in strategic execution, game reading ability and rhythm control. This is the result of the continuous deepening of Vietnam's football youth training system.
