AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The U.S. women’s national team arrived at the 2023 Women’s World Cup 10 days ago. The players have talked about the environment, their teammates and how they fill the days. Now, with less than 24 hours to go before their first game, they finally have an opponent to talk about, that being World Cup debutantes Vietnam.
Manager Mai Duc Chung’s side is something of a wild card, having qualified out of the Asian Confederation via a playoff at the expense of Chinese Taipei and Thailand. Their recent friendly results have been a hodgepodge; there’s no disgrace in losing to Germany 2-1, a match in which the Golden Star Women Warriors showed improved organization and defensive discipline. But that was followed up by a 2-0 defeat to New Zealand and a 9-0 hammering by Spain behind closed doors.
So what version of Vietnam is the U.S. expecting? U.S. manager Vlatko Andonovski is clearly consulting his “Worst Case Scenario Handbook.”
“We’re preparing to see the best Vietnam team that has ever been on the field, and if that is the team that we saw against Germany, that’s what we’re preparing for,” Andonovski said at the pre-game press conference. “And at the end, I hope we have a good result. I hope we finish the game and win the game with multiple goals, but we won’t know anything until the game is over. All we can do is just prepare the best that we can to be ready for it.”
The U.S. players are of similar minds.
“You can’t take them for granted,” forward Lynn Williams said about Vietnam. “I think that every single opponent we come up against, it’s going to be tough. Every single [team] is qualified for the World Cup, so there’s that.”
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Vietnam is under no illusions about the magnitude of its task. Mai referenced the fact that Vietnam is the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, while the U.S. is ranked first. And while he emphasized his team is here to learn, they don’t intend to be pushovers either.
“The U.S. is a very, very strong team. It is like a mountain,” said Mai during Friday’s press conference via a translator. “But it doesn’t mean that we will give up. We will have very suitable tactics so that we can minimize the goals and we can minimize the injuries. And if we can score goals, then it will be great.”
Forward Huynh Nhu added, “At the moment, no fear at all… I believe all my comrades and friends [are] the same; no fear.”
The expectation is that Vietnam will sit deep, defend stoutly and then try to hit the U.S. on the counterattack through forward Huynh Nhu. It’s an approach the U.S. struggled to cope with in its final pre-World Cup friendly against Wales, when it took two second-half goals from Trinity Rodman to finally get the win. But Williams said the U.S. has to be ready for anything.
