Vietnam 1, Iraq 1

On Thursday night I took Carter and Finn to Mỹ Đinh Stadium to watch a World Cup qualifier match between Vietnam and Iraq,  The Vietnamese team desperately needed three points with a  win to increase the likelihood they could make it to the next round.  Tickets were only $4.50, and the stadium was pretty nice.

Here are the national anthems being played.  You can see the stadium was less than half full, but those that were there were pretty loud.  And this was Finn's first professional soccer game, so he got to hear and see a lot of chanting and cheering.

Iraq dominated play early but it was Vietnam that schored first on some nice passing and a good shot in the 30th minutes.  They then attempted to hold on to their slender lead with good defending and some stellar goalkeeping.

Finn was especially popular with the crowd:

Vietnam held on for almost the entire game, but late into injury time the Vietnamese conceded a penalty and Iraq was able to equalize.  Final score was 1-1. Vietnam now faces a must-win game on Tuesday against Thailand.

After the game there were several hundred taxis waiting to pick up the crowd, but we had a lot of difficulty finding someone who would take us home because we lived about a mile and a half way.  I guess they were looking for a bigger fare.  We had to walk about five blocks before we found a taxi that would bring us back to Star Tower.