18:00 August 9 Round 20 V.League 2015, SLNA - Hanoi T&T: Revamping the defense, heading towards the capital

(Baonghean.vn) - Hanoi T&T has just received good news, when the V.League 2015 Organizing Committee announced that Mr. Hien's team won 3 awards for the best team, coach and player of July. That will be a great motivation for the capital team to confidently welcome the players from Nghe An on Sunday afternoon (August 9).

Nghe An football team is always full of confidence when receiving players from the capital (Internet photo)

Last July was a month in which Hanoi T&T had an extremely impressive series of matches. They won 4 matches and only drew 1 match. Most recently, Hanoi T&T had a devastating 5-0 victory over Hai Phong, within the framework of the National Cup. With that victory, the Capital team entered their name in the final match of the KienLongBank National Cup 2015.

In V.League, Mr. Hien's team is also making rapid breakthroughs. Since the 13th round, Hanoi T&T has not lost any match. Before the 13th round, the capital team was ranked 10th on the rankings. In the 19th round, they jumped to 5th place with 30 points, less than 3 wins away from the top group.

That achievement was thanks to the return from injury of a series of important players. These include Thanh Luong, Van Quyet, Gonzalo, Samson, Victor, these players are all top-quality players in the V.League and with their return, the way the Capital team plays has become sharper and more explosive.

Before round 18, everyone thought that Hanoi T&T would have a hard time defeating Thanh Hoa, a team that was also on a winning streak. But when the match took place, Hanoi T&T showed its extremely versatile attacking ability. At the end of the match, Mr. Hien's team crushed the Thanh team with a score of 4-1. With what Hanoi T&T showed, the team at the top of the rankings, Becamex Binh Duong, had to worry more than ever, because after all, in the V.League, Hanoi T&T is the team that can compete with the defending champion.

It will be a hard day for Hoang Thinh and his teammates on SLNA's side, to be able to neutralize the best player of July, Nguyen Van Quyet (Internet photo)

On the other side of the front line, things seem to be the opposite for the Nghe An team. Song Lam Nghe An has just suffered two consecutive losses, causing them to fall from 4th place (before round 18) to 8th place on the rankings.

Through those two defeats, it can be seen that Song Lam's defense played very badly. National team center back Manh Hung was the one who directly exposed the weaknesses, causing the Nghe team to lose extremely valuable points, when the battle in V.League was entering the final rounds.

After the match with Thanh Hoa, coach Ngo Quang Truong himself had complaints aimed directly at his favorite student Manh Hung: "In football, defenders are the position closest to the goal, but if mistakes happen that lead to a goal, you have to look at yourself, because no matter what, defenders must understand that they are not allowed to make mistakes."

If coach Ngo Quang Truong does not make reasonable adjustments to the defense, it will be very difficult for Song Lam in the upcoming matches. Especially the match against Hanoi T&T, when they have to face the capital team with the most destructive attack in V.League at this time.

Returning to the match against the home team Thanh Hoa in the last round, except for the defense not playing well, the lines of Song Lam played very well, the players on the attack line had beautiful coordination with each other, if they had not wasted too many opportunities, Song Lam could have scored more than 1 goal against their neighbor Thanh.

And if there are timely adjustments from coach Quang Truong, the young players from Nghe An can completely play on par with the capital team even though they have to play away. In a statement before this match, coach Quang Truong said: "SLNA's advantage is that at any stadium, there is the support of the fans who love the team. Therefore, certainly when Hang Day Stadium is full of hometown fans, it will help SLNA players play with 100% of their strength to get good results."

The audience will be a great source of encouragement for SLNA players to achieve good results against HN T&T (Internet photo)

Through the research of the times the two teams faced each other, Song Lam is the team with more advantages. The Nghe team has never lost a match to HN T&T, both at home and away, and out of the 7 times they met, the Nghe team had 2 victories against Mr. Hien's team.

If they can limit mistakes from the defense, SLNA can still get a good result against the home team HN T&T (Internet photo)

If they don't want to "free fall" on the rankings, the most important thing for coach Quang Truong and his team right now is to pull themselves together, learn from the lessons learned from the last two defeats, and get a good result against the best team in July - HN T&T, thereby regaining their winning streak.

Duc Anh