Pre-season 2013: Vietnam vs Arsenal Preview

After Sunday’s comfortable 7-0 victory over the Indonesian Dream Team, Arsenal have now travelled 1800 miles to Hanoi, Vietnam to face a Vietnamese XI in the second match of their South East Asia tour.

No Premier League team have ever been to Vietnam, so Arsenal will be the first to play a Vietnamese outfit. The Vietnam national team are not exactly a powerhouse in world football, nor Asian football for that matter, boasting just 2 victories in their last 10 official FIFA games.

So their world ranking of 145 will not surprise many of you, however they are ranked higher than Indonesia who are 168th. Vietnam has had some recent success in the South East Asian version of the European Championships, the ASEAN Championship, winning the competition in 2008.

Vietnam’s bid to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil ended early in 2011 where they fell at the 2nd qualification round hurdle losing to Qatar 4-2 on aggregate. Vietnam has never qualified for a World Cup. Currently, Vietnam are focusing their efforts on qualifying for the Asian Cup, however after 2 defeats from 2 against Hong Kong and UAE, they look to have their work cut out to get to Australia in 2015.

Pretty much all of the Vietnam squad play their football in the Vietnamese V League. All-time top goal scorer Le Cong Vinh plays for 3rd place Song Lam. Le Cong Vinh boasts an impressive record of 31 goals in 55 international games for Vietnam, definitely a player to look out for.

Vietnam’s most capped player is Nguyen Minh Phuong. The 33-year old veteran has featured 79 times for Vietnam. Captain of the Vietnam national side is 29-year old winger Le Tan Tai. The game against Arsenal on Wednesday will be Head Coach Hoang Van Phuc’s third official match in charge for Vietnam. It has been an unsuccessful start for Van Phuc losing his first 2 of official games in charge.

Vietnam has had some victories recently, but they are not recognised as official FIFA fixtures, as they are friendlies against club sides. The game against Arsenal will also be an unofficial fixture, and will no doubt be used as a warm up game for Vietnam’s next Asian Cup Qualifier against Uzbekistan in October, a game they will almost certainly have to win if they are to qualify for the Asian Cup for only the second time in their history.

Arsenal will definitely be looking to build on their impressive first pre-season victory over Indonesia, with another convincing win over The Red Warriors on Wednesday. Youngsters like Akpom, Gnabry, Eisfeld and Zelalem will be hoping for more minutes, whilst Jack Wilshere could also be set for his first game of pre-season, after missing out against Indonesia with an illness.

Despite it being so early on in pre-season, it was pleasing to see how sharp first team players such as Giroud, Podolski, Sagna and Podolski looked. Sagna, speaking to Arsenal.com, expressed his happiness on how pre-season was going after missing out on the tours last season through injury.

All in all I think we should expect another convincing win, however Vietnam should be a tougher test than Indonesia, although the last two times Indonesia and Vietnam have met, both games resulted in 0-0 draws. A capacity crowd at the My Dinh National stadium of 40,000 should be in full effect as Arsenal continues their pre-season campaign in South East Asia.