Fans brave foul weather for Cup tickets

Eager anticipation: Football fans queuing for the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup tickets at My Dinh National Stadium in Ha Noi. — VNA/VNS Photo Quy Trung

HA NOI — Despite cold weather and a 2-0 loss to Malaysia in the first leg semi-final of the ASEAN Football Championship on Wednesday, thousands of Vietnamese fans lined up at My Dinh National Stadium yesterday to buy tickets for the second leg match tomorrow.

A line of hundreds of metres had queued up at the stadium by 7am, nearly two hours before tickets were to go on sale at 8.30am.

The first leg loss left a tall order for Viet Nam in the return match, but over 1,200 organisations have also registered to buy at least 165,000 tickets, over four times the stadium capacity.

A fan named Minh, who got the first ticket, said he had arrived at 4am but still had to purchase a ticket for a seat behind the goal line.

"I just bought an uncomfortable seat, but I'm still lucky," Minh said. "I just hope that Viet Nam can overturn the first-leg loss."

Security was tight at the stadium, so chaos would not erupt among the queuing fans.

Due to the high demand, fans were only allowed to buy two tickets, with prices starting from VND100,000 (US$5). Only a few were able to buy grandstand tickets, at prices of VND200-400,000 ($10-20). Just one hour after ticket sales ended, touters were offering some of the same seats at VND1.3 million ($68).

Witnessing the crowd of touts, fan Nguyen Van Hung said, "I'll watch the match on TV as I did two years ago. I don't want to waste time and money for touted tickets."

Viet Nam must win at least 3-0 in the second leg match tomorrow to secure a final berth, while a 2-0 win would mean that Viet Nam and Malaysia play extra time. — VNS

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Hosts Vietnam humiliated at Hanoi football cup

Hosts Vietnam were beaten 2-0 by Australia on Wednesday, the second match-day of the Thang Long-Hanoi Football Cup.

The Socceroos sank the Henrique Calisto-coached side with two goals in the first half after displaying dominance in both physical fitness, speed and ball possession.

In the 19th minute, the player wearing number 11 jersey of the Socceroos, Jason Hoffman, separated two rival central defenders Nhu Thanh and Phuoc Tu and invaded the box to score his opening goal.

Seventeen minutes later, Tahj Rodney Minniecon escaped the offside trap of the defensive wall of Vietnam to double the scores.

Vietnam, who romped past Kuwait 3-0 on Monday, could almost set up no clear chances to threat the Australian goalkeeper Andrew James Redmayne after the visiting team performed close fighting for the ball to take advantage of their height and fitness.

It leaves no space for Vietnamese players to manage.

The hosts strived to launch more attacking efforts in the second half of the match but failed to convert any goal.

In the other game of the match-day two, North Korea, who won Australia 1-0 in the opening round, found their second straight victory after beating Kuwait 1-0 and are leading the table with six points.

The September 20-24 tournament to celebrate the 1,000 anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi has four teams partaking in single round robin format with the champions to pocket US$20,000. Two runners-up get $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.

In the last match-day on Friday, Vietnam will take on North Korea and Australia to face Kuwait.

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