Vietnam's women secured the football gold at Southeast Asia’s biggest sporting event with a dramatic 6-0 win over host Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
The women celebrated with the Vietnamese fans when the final whistle blew at around 9:30 p.m., before being crowned the top women footballers at the SEA Games for the fifth time. The match was aired live on Vietnam Television.
This year's competition was based on a round robin format because there were only five teams: Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Vietnamese team knew going into the game they would have to win by five goals to be crowned champions after Thailand had beaten the Philippines 3-1 in the earlier game.
They were quick off the mark and opened the scoring in the seventh minute, before finishing the first half with four goals.
The second half was one-way traffic again, and the team was able to find the net twice to ensure victory and gold.
Their success has earned the women more than VND4 billion ($176,000) in bonuses from Vietnam’s sports ministry, the Vietnam Football Federation and businesses, and overshadows the men's team that crashed out to Thailand on the same day.
The men’s team coach Huu Thang announced his resignation shortly after the match, which saw Vietnam eliminated from the competition.
Kuala Lumpur is hosting SEA Games 29 between August 19 and 31, gathering athletes from the 11 Southeast Asian members. Vietnam was second in the medal as of Thursday after winning 84 medals, including 32 golds. At the last Games, the country came third with 186 medals, including 73 golds.