The Thai player and Tien Linh’s medal turned out to be unrelated
Like Leopard Adolescentreported that after the AFF Cup 2024 final, striker Nguyen Tien Linh was awarded the wrong medal by the tournament organizers.
The striker born in 1997 still received the gold medal, but it had the word “runner-up” engraved on it, while the other teammates all received the exact gold medal with the word “champion” engraved on it.
Immediately after that, Tien Linh, through the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), appealed to the tournament organizers to get the correct championship medal back. Worth mentioning, Tien Linh only discovered the problem when netizens spoke up. At the time of receiving the medal, he did not realize he was given the wrong medal.
Tien Linh’s defective medal
So where did Tien Linh’s medal with the word “champion” go? Social networks have spread humorous information that the organizers mistakenly engraved another medal with the word “champion”, but in silver color (which is the color of the runner-up). Many people speculate that this medal was awarded to Pansa Hemviboon, the author of the turning point own goal that helped the Vietnamese team equalize 2-2 in the 2024 AFF Cup final second leg with Thailand.
However, this is actually just a composite photo. The online community collaged the image of Van Thanh holding the gold medal with the word “champion”, then edited it to silver and announced that this medal belonged to Pansa Hemviboon. That led to unnecessary criticism for Pansa and the tournament organizers.
The information that Pansa Hemviboon received a silver medal with the word “champion” is false
The organizers apologized to Tien Linh
According to newspaper sources Adolescentthe AFF Cup 2024 organizing committee received Tien Linh’s offer. They apologized for the unexpected incident and affirmed that they would give Tien Linh a “genuine” gold medal like other teammates.
It is known that all costs for production and transportation to award the new gold medal with the words “Champion” to Tien Linh will be paid by the tournament organizers.
It is known that due to having to renew the gold medal from the beginning, plus shipping time, it is likely that Tien Linh will have to wait more time to receive the gold medal, most likely after the Lunar New Year.
Tien Linh scored 4 goals at the AFF Cup 2024, second only to Xuan Son (7 goals) in scoring for the national team. In the last 2 AFF Cup periods, Tien Linh scored a total of 10 goals, including important goals against Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore.
Tien Linh is a strong candidate for the Vietnam Golden Ball title, alongside Hoang Duc, Quang Hai or Thanh Chung.
