U23 Vietnam Face U23 Thailand in Gia Lai: A Small Tournament, A Large Door

There is a detail almost nobody noticed when the Vietnam Football Federation announced the U23 schedule in Gia Lai: this tournament is not about winning a trophy. It is a stress test for an entire generation of players before the 2028 AFC U23 Asian Cup qualifiers. And the first opponent they must endure is Thailand.

From November 8, U23 Vietnam will regroup in Pleiku. Four teams take part: hosts Vietnam, Thailand, Qatar and Singapore. The format is a single round robin, three matches per team, with the final match day on November 14. Pleiku Stadium, a ground that once witnessed afternoons when Hoang Anh Gia Lai made the whole highland city hold its breath, will be the centre of attention again. The event sits within the National Tourism Year – Gia Lai 2026, organised by the Gia Lai Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism in coordination with the Vietnam Football Federation. Information from the Vietnam Football Federation states the tournament carries a significant total prize fund, though the exact figure has not been fully disclosed.

Based on my experience following matches, this is the first time in years I have seen a U23-level friendly tournament placed in the right geographic spot. Pleiku is not Hanoi and not Ho Chi Minh City. At roughly 700 metres above sea level, the air is thinner, the ball travels faster, the lungs tire sooner. For young players arriving straight from a congested V.League season, three matches in seven days under these conditions is a physical test no friendly in the lowland centres can replicate.

The real tactical problem is not Thailand. It is the six days between the regroup and the opening match. Six days for a coach to bind together a squad drawn from seven or eight different clubs, with completely opposing pressing philosophies. A player from a possession-based side needs at least two sessions just to sync his running rhythm with a teammate from a counter-attacking side. That is why regional U23 tournaments are so often won by the team with the largest block of players from a single club — not because they are better, but because they have less to relearn.

Thailand is the opponent we need rather than the opponent we want. Over the past decade, Thai youth football has undergone a physical transformation: their academies now prioritise height and speed over ornamental technique. Qatar bring a dry but deeply irritating style, organised along European lines. Singapore are modest but always tactically disciplined, and teams like that are precisely the ones that punish complacent young sides with points.

When the Thailand match kicks off, watch one detail: the crowd's reaction after the first whistle. In an ordinary friendly at My Dinh, the stands tend to stay quiet for the first ten minutes. In Pleiku, I would bet otherwise. The people of Gia Lai once lived with football as part of their breathing, and when the national team comes to town, they will not sit still. The stadium is empty, but I can hear the hearts of thousands of fans beating as one — and this time, the stands will not be empty.

There is a risk I consider more serious than injury: this tournament could be misread. If U23 Vietnam win all three matches, the media will hail a new golden generation. If they lose to Thailand, articles will call it a disaster. Both readings are lazy. In youth football, friendly results have far lower diagnostic value than how players respond when they go a goal down in the seventieth minute. When the press room falls silent, I know I have touched the sore spot — and the sore spot of Vietnamese youth football is that we have never learned how to lose systematically.

Another issue absent from the official announcement: who gets called up. If this really is a stepping stone to the 2028 AFC U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, the squad list must reflect that. The tournament squad should include at least seven or eight players born in 2026 or later, who will still be eligible in 2027. If instead it is filled with the best players born in 2026, we are repeating the old mistake: using youth tournaments to hunt trophies rather than to build a squad capable of surviving a qualifying campaign.

On the organisational side, placing the tournament in Gia Lai is a smart move. Pleiku has a stadium up to standard, hotel infrastructure for four national teams, and most importantly a community that once lived and died with football. National Tourism Year 2026 is merely the pretext that legitimises the budget; the real value lies in dragging elite football out of the two big cities. But let us be honest: if tickets are priced like an ordinary international friendly, locals will come for the Thailand match and stay home for the other two. That is the practical test for the organisers.

What I most want to see is not a win over Thailand. I want to see a twenty-year-old make a positional error in the twentieth minute, concede, and still demand the ball in the eightieth. I want to see a coach brave enough to make three substitutions at half-time against Qatar because he believes in a different plan, not because his players are playing badly. At sixty-five, I still stay up until three in the morning to watch a match nobody cares about — because those are the matches that tell me who will still be standing on the pitch five years from now.

The biggest trap for Vietnamese youth football is not Thailand, not Qatar, not Singapore. It is the habit of measuring progress in trophies. We have had U23 sides win regional titles and then vanish from the continental map within three years. If the Pleiku tournament ends with a trophy and not a single name promoted to the senior national team within eighteen months, that will be the real failure.

People hate me because I speak first, then remember me because I was right. This time I will speak first: the results of three matches in Gia Lai will matter less than two numbers — how many players under 21 play at least 180 minutes, and how many of this squad remain eligible for the 2028 AFC U23 Asian Cup qualifiers. Write those two numbers down on November 14. A year from now, we will know whether the Vietnam Football Federation is actually building a team, or merely hosting a four-team party in the highlands.