China began their AFC U20 Women\u2019s Asian Cup Thailand campaign with a convincing 3-0 win over Vietnam in their opening Group A match at the Nonthaburi Stadium. Hosts Thailand came back from two goals down to beat Bangladesh 3-2 in their Group A opener at the Thammasat Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Champions in 2006, China will seek a second win when they face Bangladesh on Saturday, while Vietnam will need to bounce back against Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Vietnam, however, who showed their attacking intent first in the match against China, when, in the third minute, Le Hong Yeu sent a long aerial ball to Ngan Thi Thanh Hieu, whose left-footed attempt from a tight angle proved too ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China made their first attempt in the 12th minute, with Zeng Yujia feeding Xiao Yafei down the right flank, only for Vietnam defender Nguyen Thi Thuong to clear the threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was followed by a series of intermittent attacks from China, who went close in the 16th minute when Yu Xingyue\u2019s close-range effort was parried by goalkeeper Le Thi Thu, while Wang Aifang\u2019s rebound was denied by captain Nguyen Thi Thuy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The East Asians continued to press and had another opportunity just before the half-hour mark when Lu Jiayu sent a header towards goal from the centre of the box, but the attempt lacked power and was comfortably gathered by Thu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The repeated pressure on the Vietnamese defence finally paid off in the 39th minute when Zheng Lu picked up a loose ball in the box and buried the ball into the top left corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China then doubled their advantage two minutes before the break, as Yu Xingyue\u2019s sublime cross found Zheng, who once again finished with composure to give her side a comfortable lead at half-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colin Bell\u2019s side returned from the break with the same attacking intent, with Li Ke firing from outside the box in the 48th minute, forcing the Vietnamese custodian to punch the effort away, while defender Huang Jiaxin sent a header wide to the right a minute later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China continued to test the Vietnamese backline in the 60th minute when Wang\u2019s cross from the corner found Lu inside the box, but her header drifted just wide of the left post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six minutes later, Vietnam, in their attempt to find a response, saw midfielder An Hoang Cuc unleash an effort from outside the box, which was safely collected by Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chen was called into action again moments later when Ngan Thi Thanh struck from a tight angle towards the bottom right corner, but was denied by the focused Chinese keeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it was China who once again found the back of the net in the 77th minute, when Wang\u2019s free-kick from the left was thwarted by the Vietnamese goalkeeper, but the loose ball fell in the way of Zeng Yujia, who finished from the centre of the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Thailand scored all their goals in a 10-minute spell in the second half to deny debutants Bangladesh a winning start to their campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thailand made the stronger start, with Rasita Taobao and Kurisara Limpawanich keeping Bangladesh custodian Mile Akter on her toes in the opening 10 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sapna Rani had the first shot on target for Bangladesh in the 13th minute, but her attempt from distance lacked both power and accuracy, landing straight in keeper Atima Boonprakanpai\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A jittery Akter then fumbled a free-kick by Rasita in the 16th minute, but Kurisara was too slow on the follow-up with her shot from the far post going across the goalmouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The custodian made a fine save in the 28th minute to deny Pichayatida Manowang\u2019s curling long-range attempt, with Kurisara pouncing on the rebound only to see her shot strike the right post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bangladesh stunned the home crowd by scoring against the run of play in the 36th minute when Sagorika picked up a defence-splitting through ball from Momita Khatun near the centreline, ran down the middle of the pitch and side-footed home past a diving Atima.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It got worse for Thailand five minutes into the second half as Sagorika picked up a pass from Umehla Marma, ran down the right with the Thailand defence in hot pursuit and slipped the ball through Atima\u2019s legs to double her side\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hosts\u2019 attempts to reduce the deficit saw Pichayatida\u2019s shot from inside the box punched out by Akter in the 62nd minute, with the keeper then easily collecting a tamer effort by Rasita from the left and denying captain Rinyaphat Moondong\u2019s fierce strike moments later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defender Surovi Arfin\u2019s foul on Natcha Kaewanta, however, sparked Thailand\u2019s fightback with <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kurisara slamming her spot-kick in the 69th minute into the top right corner past a helpless Akter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They then drew level via another penalty in the 76th minute after Nabiran Khatun brought down Pichayatida, with skipper Rinyaphat – just like Kurisara – finding the top right corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thailand had the crowd on their feet when they completed the remarkable turnaround three minutes later when Pichayatida squeezed her way past two defenders and hit an unstoppable shot from inside the area past Akter.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China began their AFC U20 Women\u2019s Asian Cup Thailand campaign with a convincing 3-0 win over Vietnam in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-11133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding.jpeg",938,560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding-300x179.jpeg",300,179,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding-768x459.jpeg",640,383,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding.jpeg",640,382,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding.jpeg",938,560,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding.jpeg",938,560,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding-825x560.jpeg",825,560,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding-590x410.jpeg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/stadium-branding.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11133"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11136,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11133\/revisions\/11136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}