Viet Nam will improve after Asian quarter-finals

"Each game has its own problems. Iran's players had more individual performance and quality than us," said Giustozzi.

"The first half, the team made a good showing, but we didn't do the things we wanted to do." 

"Congratulations to Iran, they played better than us," said 2016 World Cup winner Giustozzi. "We have to continue to improve. I arrived six weeks ago, and this is a tournament to evaluate my team and improve from there."`

Viet Nam played in defense to resist the defending champions who tested goalkeeper Ho Van Y from early time through Salar Aghapour's and Hossein Tayebi's efforts. 

Y maintained his excellent performance from the group stage and denied attempts of Saeid Ahmad Abbasi and Mohammadhossein Bazyar in the fifth and sixth minutes, respectively, to keep his side safe. 

But the keeper could not stop Tayebi's incredible strike in the seventh minute, with the Iran skipper volleying home Moslem Oladghobad's corner-kick. 

Iran continued to make Y busy with their consecutive attacks from all angles.

Aghapour, Alireza Rafiei Pour and Tayebi scored three other goals to end the first half at 4-0 lead for the Asian No 1 team.

The second half also saw Iranian domination. Despite strong effort, Viet Nam had no way to stop Bazyar, Oladghobad, Tayebi and Abbasi to grab their goals.

Desperate to stay in the game, Vietnam initiated power play in the 11th minute but their plan did not work.

In the second half the team was forced to play on the counter-attack. They had a golden opportunity to reduce the deficit in the 24th minute when Rafiei Pour was penalised for handling the ball at the edge of the box, but the Southeast Asians failed to capitalise. 

Viet Nam finally scored a consolation by Pham Duc Hoa when it was about two minutes to the end. 

Argentinean Giustozzi did not make any react when seeing his team's goal. He knew many works needed to lift Viet Nam up.

"Viet Nam has to improve fitness, players' stature, their mentality and the ability to play independently. And most importantly, the domestic competitions must be upgraded. Thailand, Japan, Iran and Uzbekistan are homes to qualify leagues and their futsal are in a much higher level than Viet Nam," he said.

It was the third AFC Futsal Asian Cup clash between the two teams, with Iran emerging 15-4 and 13-1 winners in their previous meetings.

Coach Vahid Shamsaee - an eight-time Asian champion with Iran as a player - was impressed with how quickly Viet Nam has developed. 

"We analysed Viet Nam really well, and what's important for us is the result and moving forward to the next stage. This is the players' efforts to reach our target through our philosophy," he said on the-afc.com

 "Back in the day when I was a player, we beat a team with 36 goals but that period is now over.

"Futsal is developing every year, and I didn't expect that we could score this many goals against a team like Viet Nam. They are a wonderful team, as shown in the last World Cup. All the teams are developing and the new generation will come. 

"I had the experience of playing in Viet Nam in 2005, and I heard that Viet Nam was starting to make long-term plans for futsal then. But I didn't expect them to develop that fast in Asia, and now they are playing in the World Cup," he said.

Giustozzi and his team returned home on October 5. Players will join their teammates in clubs and will compete in the National Futsal Championship's second period from October 20 to November 10 in Can Tho Province./.