Culture - Sports

Vietnam’s football teams eye Olympic qualifiers

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has confirmed the Asian entries for the qualifying rounds of the 2012 London Olympics football tournament including Vietnam's men's and women's teams.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has confirmed the Asian entriesfor the qualifying rounds of the 2012 London Olympics footballtournament including Vietnam's men's and women's teams.

The men will fight it out against 33 others for one of the three spotsavailable to play in London in four years time while 16 teams willbe vying for one of two berths in the women's competition.

According to the AFC, the draw and competition schedule will beannounced soon. The qualifiers are expected to be concluded by the endof 2011.

Old enemies Thailand and Vietnam arethe only teams from Southeast Asia to register for the qualifiers.

Thailand 's men have dominated the region in recentyears while Vietnam 's women have held the upper hand.

The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) said they will draw updetailed training plans for the two teams following the results of thedraws.

At the qualifying round for the BeijingOlympics two years ago, the women's team under Chinese coach Chen YunFat made the second round of qualifiers. The men did better being theonly team from Southeast Asia to reach the final qualifying round wherethey lost to Japan . They were coached by Austrian Alfred Riedl.

The success of both teams has made the VFF confident thatwith good support, they could cause a shock this time around.

The governing body is setting up national coaching programmesand plans to send teams to train overseas.

In othernews, the world football governing body (FIFA) on June 1 announced thatthe qualifying round for the 2014 World Cup will not take place inOctober as originally planned. It said the date is yet to be decided butit would not be before November next year.

As aresult, Vietnam 's competition calendar will be loosened as they arepreparing for the coming 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou , China thisNovember and the VFF Cup later this year./.
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