Viet Nam's national football team will play Indonesia in the 1^st round of Group A in the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup at Ha Noi’s My Dinh Stadium on Saturday 22 November at 7.00pm.

Mr Alfred Riedl, the Austrian coach of Indonesia who is also a former coach of the Vietnamese national team, said confidentially that he is optimistic about a win because his team will start the game with their key stars.  Amongst them, the most outstanding player is U19 captain Evan Dimas.  The striker is one of the top 10 Indonesian players aged under 23, and he has so far lived up to coach Riedl's expectations.  Evan came to prominence last year when Indonesia were crowned the AFF U19 Champions 2013.  Last month he scored a hat-trick for his team in their 3-2 win over South Korea in the qualifiers of the AFC U19 Championship.  In addition, he scored on his debut for the Indonesian national team during a friendly match against East Timor on 11 November.

Other key stars for Indonesia include naturalised players Victor Igbonefo, Sergio van Dijk, Raphael Guillermo, Eduardo Maitimo and Cristian Gonzales, as well as striker Boas and midfielders Muhammad Ridwan, and Firman Utina.

As for Viet Nam’s national team, they have yet to meet the expectations of home fans despite their dramatic 3-0 and 3-1 wins over Korean students and Malaysia respectively in recent international friendly matches at the Thong Nhat and My Dinh stadiums.  Viet Nam’s main worry is that their attacking players have missed too many scoring chances, whilst their defence is too loose.  As a result, it is likely that the Vietnamese team will find it very difficult to defeat their rivals in their first match at their home stadium.