Coach Dinh Hong Vinh not satisfied despite reaching ASIAD 2026 quarter-finals: Lessons from Uzbekistan and the South Korea question

At the fifth minute, the Paloma Mizuho Stadium had barely filled with noise when Mohammadali Urinboev put Uzbekistan ahead. The composed finish through Vietnam U23's defence was not just the quickest goal in Group C; it was a cold answer to Coach Dinh Hong Vinh's cautious game plan. After the restart, his team pushed forward, pressed, created chances, but could not score. The match ended 0-2, and the quarter-final ticket only arrived after the Philippines beat Kuwait 2-1 in the simultaneous fixture. Football is sometimes unfair to teams that play better on the pitch. Vietnam U23 did not play badly against Uzbekistan. They controlled the ball better after conceding, pushed their opponents back. Nguyen Thai Quoc Cuong and Nguyen Ngoc My had dangerous shots, Nguyen Thanh Nhan even put the ball in the net but was denied for offside. Yet the scoreboard stayed still. What Vinh's team lacked was not ideas, but sharpness at the decisive moment. Vinh said: “We intended to start cautiously against a strong opponent. But when Uzbekistan raised the tempo, a moment of lost concentration led to the goal. After that, the team regained confidence and controlled the ball. If the early first-half chances had become goals, the match could have been different.” That statement both expressed regret and exposed the biggest problem of Vietnam U23 in this tournament. After three group games, they had 51 shots, only 17 on target and three goals. A conversion rate of around 5.9 percent is far too low for the number of chances created. The team can control matches, but they do not yet know how to turn that control into goals. The Philippines win over Kuwait at the same time helped Vietnam U23 finish second in Group C with four points, behind an unbeaten Uzbekistan on nine points and one point ahead of the Philippines. But looking only at the table means missing the bigger issue: a team that creates many chances but cannot score against the strongest side in the group. I used to write before listening. Now I listen even to the gaps between answers. Listening to Vinh talk about the match, I focused on what he did not mention: the replacement plan for Nguyen Xuan Bac. The central midfielder left the pitch in the 35th minute with an injury, and from that moment Vietnam U23 lost their ability to keep rhythm and transition quickly. They still had the ball, but the passes into dangerous areas were no longer played at the right time. The second goal came in the 68th minute after Ibraimov dribbled past Pham Ly Duc and fired past Cao Van Binh. Look closely, and it was the result of a team beginning to lose its shape. Without Xuan Bac, Vietnam U23 no longer had enough pressure to keep Uzbekistan in their own half. The midfield was stretched, the spaces between the lines widened, and Ibraimov had enough room to finish. Modern football emphasises transition. The team that switches from defence to attack faster and more accurately holds the advantage. Vietnam U23 have fast, tough and hard-working players, but they lack the necessary fluidity. Vinh admitted that when he said the team was still slow and had not attacked effectively in the final third. The phrase “slow rhythm” sounds abstract, but it was visible in how Vietnam U23 handled counter-attacks. Players often hesitated one beat before making the decisive pass, or chose the safe option instead of trying from a tight angle. In a knockout match, those small differences become a large scoreline gap. The first lesson of my career did not come from a contract, but from an unconfirmed rumour. For Vietnam U23, the lesson here is not the defeat, but the wasted chances. A team can play well for 90 minutes, but without goals, everything is just meaningless statistics. The Uzbekistan match was the clearest evidence. Vinh also praised his players' fighting spirit. But he admitted that three days of preparation before the tournament were not enough for the team to find fluidity. The new group of players will gain more experience in the future when they play alongside the group that competed in the 2026 AFC U23 Asian Cup, but the quarter-final on September 25 does not wait. Fans may focus on defensive mistakes, or the coach's cautious approach. In reality, Vietnam U23 did not lose because they played badly. They lost because their finishing was not ruthless enough. And the bigger blind spot was the team's ability to cope when losing a key player. A young Asian Games squad will always face injury risk, but the reaction after Xuan Bac left showed there was no clear Plan B. Not because of a lack of replacements, but because the style depended too much on one individual in midfield. In closed meeting rooms, people talk about price. In the corridors, they talk about the fear of being left behind. I want to borrow that image for Vietnam U23 ahead of the quarter-final. Everyone mentions South Korea, their three quality overage players, and the motivation of military-service exemption. But the team's real fear is not the opponent's name. It is whether they can keep the tempo for 90 minutes when the intensity becomes even higher. On September 25, Vietnam U23 will return to Paloma Mizuho in Nagoya for the quarter-final. The opponent will likely be South Korea if the East Asian side avoid defeat against Saudi Arabia in the final round of Group D. South Korea need only a draw to top the group. With the strongest squad, three quality overage players and the incentive of military-service exemption for Asian Games gold, they are a strong candidate for the title. Coach Dinh Hong Vinh said the team will be mentally ready for any opponent. The immediate task is recovery, assessing the injuries of Xuan Bac and Quoc Cuong and finding replacements. But the biggest question is not who the opponent is. It is whether Vietnam U23 can turn their chances into goals before the opponent punishes another moment of lost concentration. The football that Vinh is building has a good foundation: spirit, confidence and ball control. But the Uzbekistan match showed that foundation means nothing if the team cannot score while on top. Anyone can talk about taking chances, but doing it under knockout pressure is another matter. Vietnam U23 will enter their most important match of the tournament with a lesson paid for by a 0-2 defeat.