Vietnamese U23 football team enters Asian Games among Asia’s top contenders

Vietnam has been drawn in Group C alongside Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Kuwait and will open its campaign against Kuwait on the evening of September 15.

The team’s third-place finish at the 2026 AFC U23 Asian Cup secured its place among the top seeds for the Asian Games.

Although several standout players, including Dinh Bac, have been promoted to the senior national team for the FIFA ASEAN Cup taking place at the same time, more than half of the squad that competed at the U23 Asian Cup remains in the Asian Games team.

Players such as Ly Duc, Ngoc My and Thanh Nhan are expected to again feature prominently against opponents of the same generation, many of whom they have already encountered at continental level.

Vietnam’s recent performances have also caught the attention of regional media.

South Korea’s Star News said the Korean team was fortunate to avoid Vietnam and Japan in the group stage, while Uzbekistan’s Kun.uz identified Vietnam as a major rival in the race for the two qualifying places in Group C.

Philippines U23 head coach Garrath McPherson has also said his team has the quality to compete with Vietnam at the Asian Games, reflecting the growing respect for the Vietnamese side among its regional rivals.

The 2026 tournament also marks a change in the way Asian Games football teams are seeded.

Instead of using results from the previous Asian Games, organizers are basing the seedings on performances at the AFC U23 Asian Cup held earlier in the same year.

The change reduces the long gap between the tournament used for seeding and the Asian Games itself, an issue that had previously drawn criticism because U23 squads can change significantly from one edition to the next.

At the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games, held in 2023, Vietnam was also placed in Pot 1, based on the country’s semifinal appearance at the 2018 Asian Games under then-head coach Park Hang Seo.

But five years separated those two tournaments, and the squad competing in Hangzhou was largely a different generation.

Vietnam was eventually drawn with Iran and Saudi Arabia, two of Asia’s strongest teams, and exited in the group stage after heavy defeats to both.

This year, Vietnam arrives at the Asian Games with a much more recent continental result behind it – third place at the AFC U23 Asian Cup – and with much of that squad still intact.

For Vietnamese football, it is a rare position: entering the Asian Games not only among the top seeds, but also as a team that regional rivals are treating as a serious contender.

Vietnam’s Group C is considered relatively manageable compared with several other groups.

China, another Pot 1 team, will face Iran, the UAE and North Korea in Group B, while South Korea has been drawn with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Group D.