As soon as the national soccer team's 2-0 warm-up win over Vietnam was over, the Vietnamese media, vnexpress, immediately commented (below), rather unconvincingly, that the Chinese team had not played well, with only 37% of possession and only three positive shots.
The title of this article is Vietnam loses to China with fewer matches. The subtitle of the article is The Troussier-led team lost 0-2 in a friendly match, with Nguyen Kim Ling getting a red card.
The article begins with a list of the international rankings of both sides, with China ranked 80th, 15 places above Vietnam. The home team also has two naturalized players (Jiang Guangtai and Li Ke). The article then talks about China's current woes. Given that the national soccer team has struggled to win two warm-up matches in the last month, they say that this isn't exactly a friendly for China, and could even be seen as an opportunity to build on the 1-3 loss to Vietnam in a 12-game tournament over a year ago.
Talking about the match itself, the media praised the performance of the Vietnamese team in the first half, noting that the team had 65% of possession. At the start of the second half, the article argued that Vietnam played with great confidence, creating many unexpected attacks. The article then talked about Wang Thu Minh breaking the deadlock and Vietnamese player Nguyen Kim Linh's red card in the 89th minute.
After Vietnam played a man short, the article said that China played an easy game as numbers dominated. Speaking of Wu Lei who scored the second goal, the writer commented, "Although the striker, who plays for Spaniards, was poor for more than 90 minutes, he left his mark wearing the captain's armband."
The ecstatic celebrations of national soccer manager Jankovic after Wu Lei's goal also had the media spitting in their faces, suggesting that the expression of emotion partly illustrated how important the victory was to them, even though the performance wasn't really convincing - only 37 percent of the ball was in possession and three shots were on target.
Apparently, the opponents thought that the national soccer team won the match. Indeed, Vietnam played better in terms of game content, but the national soccer team won in terms of game experience and opportunities. It can be said that both teams have their own merits!
Looking at the first half, the national soccer team really flunked, which gave Vietnam an illusion - that's just the way the Chinese team is. In the second half, Vietnam just need to work a little bit harder to win completely. Jankovic adjusted his team in time for the halftime break and disrupted the opponent's deployment and expectations.
It is worth mentioning that for the Vietnamese player's red card, the media also consulted the international referees in Vietnam, who believed that the decision was correct.
