Vietnam's South Korean coach Kim Sang-sik holds a press conference at Kuala Lumpur Stadium, Malaysia on 15/8, before the first leg of the ASEAN Cup 2026 semifinal against Malaysia. Photo: Duc Dong.

Coach Kim Sang-sik is holding a press conference at the headquarters of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) in Hanoi at 11h30 today.

In the first leg, Vietnam defeated Malaysia 2-0, with goals from Nguyen Xuan Son and an own goal by Farish Danish. Despite the victory, the team's performance did not fully align with their prepared strategy. Following the match, coach Kim Sang-sik expressed satisfaction with the result but not with the overall play. He emphasized the need for players to maintain maximum concentration to avoid errors.

The Southeast Asian tournament has never seen a team overturn a two-goal deficit from the first leg. Across 33 semifinal and final matchups between 2004 and 2024, only 5 times did a team that lost the first leg manage to come back in the second leg to win overall, and these were always with a one-goal deficit.

Against Malaysia, Vietnam has won 10 and drawn one of their last 11 matches. Malaysia's most recent victory against Vietnam was in the second leg of the AFF Cup 2014 semifinal. In that match, Malaysia lost 1-2 in the first leg at their home ground, Shah Alam, but won 4-2 in the second leg at My Dinh Stadium.

By Duc Dong and Hieu Luong