VAR to be applied at the 2024 AFC U23 Championship finals

On the morning of April 14, Qatar time (early afternoon, Vietnam time), all members of the U23 Vietnam team had a meeting with the Organizing Committee to grasp the main regulations in the tournament regulations and competition rules.

After this meeting, team leader Doan Anh Tuan and some assistants attended a technical meeting before the group stage.

According to information from AFC, VAR technology to assist referees will be applied in matches at the 2024 AFC U23 Championship finals. This is the second consecutive time the tournament has applied VAR.

The first time was at the 2022 AFC U23 Championship finals in Uzbekistan. At that time, U23 Vietnam under the leadership of coach Gong Oh Kyun passed the group stage after drawing U23 Thailand (2-2), drawing U23 Korea (1-1) and beating U23 Malaysia (2-0).

In the quarter-finals, U23 Vietnam lost 0-2 to U23 Saudi Arabia.

Returning to this year's tournament, the U23 Vietnam coaching staff was not too surprised when the tournament continued to have VAR technology.

Since Qatar successfully hosted the 2022 World Cup, continental and world tournaments held in this country have regularly used VAR.

The most recent tournament with VAR held in Qatar was the 2023 Asian Cup, when the Vietnamese team was eliminated from the group stage after losing to Japan (2-4), Indonesia (0-1) and Iraq (2-3).

In this tournament, VAR brought back bad memories when the Vietnamese team received 2/8 goals from 3 penalties (1 was unsuccessful by Iraq) and 2 red cards in just 3 group stage matches.