Thailand is about to take the number 1 position in Southeast Asia from the Vietnamese team.

The Thai team is currently ranked 104th in the FIFA rankings. The recent draw against Oman helped coach Ishii Masatada's team gain 3.98 points, rising to 102nd in the world with 1198.86 points. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese team was deducted 6.47 points after losing to Japan. The defeat against Indonesia caused Quang Hai and his teammates to lose 23.26 points in the FIFA rankings.

After the second round of matches at the 2023 Asian Cup, the Vietnamese team has 1,205.9 points, only 7.04 points more than the Thai team.

The Thai press regretted that the home team drew with Oman, because if they had won the match, they would have had 21.48 more points and certainly climbed to 97th place, surpassing the Vietnamese team in the FIFA rankings. In the final match of the group stage, if they cause a surprise against Saudi Arabia, the Thai team could still surpass the Vietnamese team. Otherwise, they will have to wait until the round of 16 or the matches in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

The Vietnamese team has led Southeast Asia and surpassed the Thai team in the FIFA rankings since December 2017.

At that time, Coach Park Hang Seo and his team ranked 112th, 18 places higher than the Thai team. In fact, in the previous few months, the Thai team was still ranked below the Vietnamese team, but the Vietnamese team had not yet won the number 1 position in Southeast Asia from the Philippines.

With the current form of the two teams, it is probably only a matter of time before Thailand regains the top spot in Southeast Asia.

This is a sad milestone for Vietnamese football, because there were times when the gap between the two teams was very large on the FIFA rankings. From the end of Coach Park Hang Seo's tenure until the time Coach Troussier started his job, the Vietnamese team did not have good results in both official tournaments and friendly matches under the FIFA Days system.

The Vietnamese team lost 4/5 of the most recent matches used to calculate points on the rankings, so it is understandable that the opponent narrowed the gap.

However, if coach Troussier and his team play harder and get a good result against Iraq in the final match of the 2023 Asian Cup group stage, the Vietnamese team will still maintain its position in the world's top 100. The Vietnamese team will meet Iraq on January 24. This match is only a formality because the Vietnamese team was eliminated from the 2023 Asian Cup early after 2 losses.