On April 10, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced the list of 23 U23 Vietnam players preliminarily registered to participate in the 2024 U23 Asian Cup finals.
In this list, U23 Vietnam did not include 5 names currently training in Qatar, including: goalkeeper Doan Huy Hoang (Binh Phuoc Club), center back Nguyen Duc Anh (Hanoi), defender Nguyen Hong Phuc (The Cong - Viettel), midfielder Nguyen Duc Phu (PVF-CAND) and Nguyen Van Truong (Hanoi).
According to regulations, the deadline for teams to finalize the official list is 6 hours before the team's first match in the tournament.
Notably, in the list of 23 players announced by AFC, defender Phan Tuan Tai is still on the list, assigned shirt number 17, even though he was injured and did not join U23 Vietnam in Qatar for training before the tournament.
Because of this, the preliminary list of 23 players that the U23 Vietnam coaching staff registered with AFC may just be a "smokescreen" move for the opponents in Group D.
On the U23 Vietnam side, coach Hoang Anh Tuan said he will finalize the official list of 23 players at a technical meeting on April 16, one day before the opening match against U23 Kuwait.
Because the match date is still within the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Jordan will kick off at 9:00 p.m. local time (1:00 a.m. April 11, Vietnam time).
The 2024 AFC U23 Championship will take place from April 15 to May 3 in Qatar. The tournament will offer 3.5 places to the 2024 Paris Olympics. The fourth-placed team will compete in the play-off round with Guinea (representing Africa).
The match schedule of U23 Vietnam in group D is to meet: U23 Kuwait (April 17), U23 Malaysia (April 20), U23 Uzbekistan (April 23).