A great match between Vietnam and Qatar has just finished. This is one of the matches of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics qualifier. On paper, it looks like Qatar is going to be the outright winner in the match and Vietnam will have to settle as the whipping boys. However, that was not the case. It was an entertaining and swashbuckling football on offer live from Hanoi.
As could be seen in the title, the match ended with the two teams sharing the spoils at 1-1. Both of the goals in the match came at the first 13 minutes of the match. At the 10th minute, Qatar capitalized on a terrible defensive error made by a Vietnamese defender who slipped and a Qatar striker got the ball and simply just passed the ball into the back of the net. A very beautiful goal and from this goal, many people would have thought that it is the start of a heavy thrashing of Vietnam by Qatar.
However, it was not to be. Just 3 minutes after Qatar had taken the lead, Vietnam got a free-kick in a very dangerous position just outside Qatar’s penalty box. There were several players standing around the ball. One of them was number 9, Le Cong Vinh, the golden boy of Vietnam football. There was one other player besides him. Le Cong Vinh made the run-up to hit the ball, but just before he hit the ball, to everyone’s surprise, he kicked the ball softly in front of him just for Vu Phong, number 17 who had been lurking from behind to hit the ball. The ball flew like a rocket and hit the back of the net for Vietnam’s equalizer. Game on.
From here on, it erased all earlier predictions that Qatar would thrash Vietnam heavily. Thoughts of Vietnam scoring at least one more goal and win this match even surfaced as Qatar’s goalkeeper, whose handling was clearly bad made some schoolboy errors, only for his defenders to spare his blushes by making last ditch and desperate clearances. Having said this, it does not mean that Qatar defenders were excellent in the game. They were in fact quite slow and clumsy. They allowed many free headers. This is of significance as Qatar’s defenders are all at least 180cm tall while Vietnam’s strikers are 160-170cm. It is shameful for the Qatari defenders to give free headers to shorter players. However, Qatar didn’t concede any goal due to luck. From here on, this match resembled an English Premier League match. It was a swashbuckling attacking football spiced up with high physical elements. Pure entertainment. The only thing lacking was of course more goals as the scoreline stayed 1-1 until the end of the match.
In terms of fair play, we could not say that this match was a match with fair-play. There were moments of madness as well. One notable incident was when a Vietnam goal was rightfully disallowed. In a confusion in front of Qatari goal, Anh Duc, one of the Vietnamese strikers sensed an opportunity and stuck his arm out to get the ball into the net. He succeeded, however, he was not to be crowned Vietnam’s Maradona. The referee spotted this and immediately disallowed the goal. He even booked Anh Duc for deliberately using his arm to have an attempt towards goal.
All in all, I believe the intensity and the level of entertainment were remarkable for an Asian football match, especially for a South East Asian side, which is in this case, Vietnam. We could see that Vietnam football is rising and they are catching up with the big boys in Asian football. For an information, almost all who played against Qatar were also involved in the 2007 Asian Cup in which Vietnam was the only one who go through from the Group Stage. They were eliminated by eventual champions Iraq. From here on, Vietnam has to build on from this great match to win the subsequent matches. It will be remarkable if they could finish on top of this group which includes Japan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The team which finish on top of the group will get a berth on the 2008 Olympics soccer tournament and have a shot for the gold medal as well as rubbing shoulders with many wonderful talents worldwide.
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