source: affsuzukicup.com
As one of the co-host for the 2014 AFF Championship, Vietnam tried to make amends on their disappointing campaign in the previous 2012 edition. Japanese coach Toshiya Miura called up mature aged players to the tournament which included several players who won the 2008 edition. Those players were Le Tan Tai, Le Cong Vinh, Le Phuoc Tu, and Pham Thanh Luong. Vietnam were drawn with Indonesia, Philippines, and Laos in Group A.
Their first match was against Indonesia, the side who was considered to be the toughest of the group. The Boys in Red took an early lead and kept on creating chances to add more goals. Unfortunately, a defensive error helped Indonesia to even the score. In the second half, Miura introduced Cong Vinh in order to sharpen Vietnam’s attack. The prolific striker didn’t need too much time and immediately applied impact by scoring a wonderful goal. His half-volley following a bad clearance from Indonesian defense busted the net and put Vietnam ahead.
Vietnam continued their search for goal after the lead. Turned out, attacking resoundingly has decreased the level of alert on their defense once again. This time, the keeper Tran Nguyen Manh who made a very clumsy error and let a weak shot went through his grasp and legs. The 2-2 score line unchanged until the end of the match.
In the second match against Laos, The Gold Stars dominated the match and comfortably won 3 goals to nothing. They even didn’t allow Laos to put a number on shot-on-goal column, while Thanh Luong & co. recorded up to 17 attempts. They kept the quality performance in their third match against the Philippines, who already booked the ticket to the semifinals prior to the match. Vietnam won 3-1 and qualified from the group as leaders.
The semifinals put Vietnam head-to-head against Malaysia. They traveled to Selangor for the first leg. Malaysia took the lead by penalty in the 14th minute following a handball inside the box by Nguyen Huy Hung. Vietnam fought back and did the agenda pretty well. Vo Huy Toan equalized in the 32nd minute, and they went ahead in the 60th minute by a goal from Nguyen Van Quyet. Vietnam came home with an advantageous 2-1 away win for the return leg.
Playing in front of thousands of fans in My Dinh National Stadium, Vietnam were in full of confident to go through to the finals. However, everything started to fall apart for them when Malaysia won a penalty as early as in the 3rd minute of the match. Safiq Rahim’s successfully conversed the spot kick and put the Vietnamese defense shaking their knees. They made another error of miss-coordination and let Norshahrul score an easy goal which turned the score line for the Malaysians on aggregate.
Trailed by 2 goals sent a red alert for Vietnam. They put up an excessive offense and eventually won a penalty in the 22nd minute. Cong Vinh stepped up, scored and made the score line even at 3-3 on aggregate. However, Malaysia were being persistent and clever enough throughout the first half as they exploited the nervous Vietnamese defense with a quick counter attack and pressure play. The strategy forced the young centre-half Dinh Tien Thanh to score a goal into his own net as he tried to block a cross. Vietnam became more edgy and conceded another easy goal just before half time from a corner kick situation. The referee sent the players on break with Vietnam 1, Malaysia 4.
The second half of the match featured an all-out Vietnamese attack and Malaysian “Bus Parking” strategy. Vietnam kept on pushing and attacking but only came out with a single goal by Cong Vinh in the 79th minute. The match ended 2-4 for Vietnam and Malaysia advanced with 5-4 on aggregate. That wrapped up Vietnam’s campaign in the 2014 AFF Championship.
Among any other participant, Vietnam had 2 interesting statistical parameters. That would be the total number of shots on target fired and the total amount of their player caught offside, which are more than any other teams in the competition.
Vietnam recorded 34 shots on target in 5 matches, ahead of the champions Thailand with a single shot. Unsurprisingly, Le Cong Vinh ranked as the player with most shots on target, with 10 shots in total and 76.9% accuracy.
On the other hand, in their 5 matches, Vietnamese players caught offside 20 times. Nguyen Van Quyet was caught illegally ahead of his opponent’s defense line 8 times, more than any other players in the competition. The second place for the same category is for Cong Vinh, who saw the linesmen raised their flags upon him 7 times.
Vietnam completed 1,871 passes behind Thailand (2,322) and Philippines (1,888), which came with 76.5% passing accuracy. Nguyen Huy Hung was Vietnamese player with most number of successful passes with 293.
Their underperforming defense was justified by several defensive parameters which were no better than any other semifinalists. They’ve only made 84 successful tackles behind Thailand and Malaysia (144) as well as the Philippines (110). In terms of passing interception, Vietnam did it 75 times which was still behind the aforementioned teams.
Here is the more detailed statistical facts on Vietnam in the 2014 AFF Championship (click on image to enlarge).
