Vietnam plays Russia in front of a small Hanoi audience. Russia is a squad that has been excluded from important international football competitions since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
In front of roughly 6,000 spectators on Thursday, roughly 6,000 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Vietnam, a staunch friend of Moscow during the Cold War, the visitors won 3-0.
In the 40,000-seat My Dinh national stadium, Pham Chinh, the prime minister of Vietnam, and a few Russian supporters were seated among the vacant rows.
The usual viewing stands were covered with a massive Vietnamese flag, and local television carried live coverage of the match.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was followed shortly by the country’s exclusion from the World Cup in Qatar.
They are not participated in the 2026 World Cup qualification process, nor did they compete in the European Championships hosted in Germany this summer.
On the international front, the Russian team is still able to play friendly matches against opponents who are typically close political friends.
They overcame Belarus in Minsk in June by the same result after defeating Serbia 4-0 in March.
They were scheduled to play two games in Hanoi, one on Saturday versus Thailand as part of a mini-tournament supported by a Vietnamese bank, where the victorious team would receive $10,000.
It seems that Moscow officials are leveraging these gatherings to increase their credibility and global clout.
“Instead of just being football games, these matches could be acts of diplomacy,” Simon Chadwick, a professor of sport and the geopolitical economy, told AFP.
It is rare for Vietnam, which is rated 115th in the world and has already qualified for the World Cup, to play against a squad of Russia’s caliber.
Goalkeeper Matvey Safonov, who recently joined Paris Saint-Germain, was part of the traveling Russian team.
Head coach Valery Karpin stated during a pre-game press conference that his squad was treating both games “very seriously” as “we didn’t have the opportunities to play against the teams we want to play.”
While watching the game on Thursday, Tran Anh, a Vietnamese fan, stated that his team would undoubtedly lose.
He responded, “But it’s not a problem; it’s entertaining to watch us play against such a formidable team.”
“Win-win” – Since the 1950s, Vietnam and Russia have maintained tight relations.
One of the first nations to recognize Ho Minh’s government in Vietnam and forge diplomatic connections was the erstwhile Soviet Union.
In addition, they supplied Hanoi with troops and equipment for the battle against the US as well as financial assistance in the years that followed.
In an opinion piece published in the Communist Party organ Nhan Dan newspaper, Putin congratulated Hanoi for its “balanced stance on the Ukraine crisis” and noted that Vietnam had abstained from voting in UN resolutions denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to football analyst Nguyen Luu, the choice to host the Russian football team was also justified by Vietnam’s so-called “bamboo diplomacy” strategy, which permits a flexible foreign policy. “Naivety has no place on the (global) geopolitical map right now,” he told AFP.
According to football analyst Dang Man, “it’s a win-win situation” on the field for both teams.
Vietnam head coach Kim Sang-sik acknowledged there was a “big gap” between the teams before to the one-sided game. And it did indeed prove that.
“Our players gave it their all, but they were unable to produce a strong outcome,” he remarked after the game.
Speaking on Wednesday following his arrival in Vietnam, Russian midfielder Ivan Oblyakov expressed his excitement at being there.
These are not the kind of opponents we encounter daily, monthly, or annually. Thus, it’s rather intriguing,” he remarked.
AFP
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