Vietnam withdraw from France's Toulon Tournament football

The Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello, its formal name, is an international football tournament featuring U17 to U23 teams.

It was originally scheduled to be played in June before the pandemic put paid to plans. France is now the seventh most affected nation with more than one million cases and more than 34,500 deaths.

The teams that have confirmed entry are DR Congo, England, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, and hosts France.

The VFF announced on Friday that it has decided to pull out of the competition due to the ongoing global pandemic.

Now, under revised plans, 25 players from the squad will gather to train from November 2 to 9 before returning to their clubs to play the ongoing U21 National League.

They will regroup for a second training camp from December 20 to 28, following which the squad for the 2022 AFC U23 Championship qualifiers and SEA Games next year will be chosen.

Philippe Troussier, coach of the U19 team, announced that he plans to call up 40 players for training from late December to mid-February for the AFC U19 Championship to take place in Uzbekistan in February-March.

Vietnam are in group C with Saudi Arabia, Australia and Laos.

He has asked the VFF to send the team to Japan for training, but the decision depends on the Covid-19 situation.

The coach added that the U19 team are supposed to play the annual Thanh Nien newspaper U21 international tournament scheduled for late December, but again it depends on the outbreak situation.

In 2019 in Da Nang Vietnam U21 had defeated Japan in the final to win the title.