Despite being without their mercurial Nguyen Quang Hai, Vietnam were still too strong for Indonesia in the final of the 2019 SEA Games.
Vietnam repeated what they did in the group stage of the competition, this time with at a relatively far more comprehensive manner as they swept aside Indonesia 3-0 to win the gold medal at the 30th Southeast Asian Games.
It is the first time in this multi-sport competition that Vietnam has lift the biggest prize under their current iteration, having already won the gold once but they were a different side known as South Vietnam.
Park Hang-seo has engineered a remarkable rise in Vietnamese football that started with his side reaching the U20 World Cup as well as finishing runner-up in the AFC U23 Championship.
That was quickly followed by the AFF Championship last year and 12 months later, they are ending their hoodoo in the SEA Games after five previous bridesmaid finishing for them.
The big turning point in the game came in the 20th minute when Indonesian star Evan Dimas had to go off injured, and that gave Vietnam the perfect opportunity to seize a stranglehold on the match.
Six minutes before half time, Vietnam got into the lead when Doan Van Hau converted from Nguyen Thanh Cung’s free kick to send his team into the break on a high.
Do Hung Dung doubled their lead in the 59th minute before the SC Heerenveen Van Hau grabbed his second on the night and kickstart celebrations not only at Rizal Memorial Stadium but also back home.
In the bronze medal match, Myanmar were forced to go through a penalty shoot-out against Cambodia after both were tied 2-2 with the former finishing third after securing a 5-4 win via the spot.
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