Apply VAR for the final match of U23 Southeast Asia

On the morning of July 28, the Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF) and host Indonesia officially announced the decision to use VAR ( video assistant referee technology) for the last two matches of the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship.

Vice President of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), head of the Vietnam U23 team Tran Anh Tu said that the organizing committee has made an official decision on using VAR in the final match between Vietnam U23 and Indonesia U23 tomorrow (July 29).

Not only in the final match, VAR will also be applied in the third place match between U23 Thailand and U23 Philippines taking place at 8:00 p.m. today (July 28).

Previously, AFF and the tournament organizers did not apply VAR in all matches from the group stage to the semi-finals.

Although there were no complaints from the teams about the refereeing, the tournament also witnessed a refereeing error in the semi-final match between U23 Vietnam and U23 Philippines.

Accordingly, referee Muhammad Usaid mistakenly showed a red card to Rosquillo (number 14) instead of Leddel (number 2) for a foul from behind on striker Quoc Viet right in front of the penalty area in the 5th minute of extra time.

Although this error did not affect the match result, AFF decided to discuss with host Indonesia and agreed to apply VAR for the remaining two matches of the tournament to ensure the best professionalism.

The application of VAR for the final match was received by the public with two different opinions. The optimistic side believes that with VAR, the match will be more transparent, limiting the rough tackles of the U23 Indonesian players.

But the less optimistic side believes that with VAR, the home team will benefit from carefully examining each foul committed by the U23 Vietnam team.

The U23 Vietnam team is actively perfecting their tactics for the final match, which is expected to be difficult against U23 Indonesia, the strongest opponent since the beginning of the tournament. Coach Kim Sang Sik and his team will have one last training session tonight (July 28) to prepare for the match.