70 days and the mission of coach Duc Thang

(Baonghean.vn) -The national championship had to take a break for more than two months so that the two national U-20 teams and the Vietnam national team could gather for the U-20 World Cup and the Asian Cup qualifiers. Coach Duc Thang had 70 days to adjust and reorganize the squad.

For many years now, SLNA’s mentality has changed, it is no longer a force in Vietnamese football and has a great influence on the V-League championship. Although it has not reached the level of “running for every meal”, in the return leg of the V-League, SLNA only appears simply to “have enough plates and bowls”.

This season is no exception, the team has no specific goals, bad foreign players and some key players are about to expire their contracts. As former coach Nguyen Thanh Vinh commented, whoever leads the team in that context, will hardly get good results.

SLNA players have a “tradition” of running for a long time after long breaks. Their schedule for the next 5 rounds is to face 3 strong opponents: Than Quang Ninh, Ha Noi, SHB.Da Nang, alternating with 2 slightly easier opponents: Quang Nam (away), and Ho Chi Minh City, who must play away. According to experts, SLNA will find it difficult to get 7 points in these 5 matches if they do not do a good job of ideological work for the players.

Currently, SLNA does not have quality young players like Quang Hai (Hanoi). Photo: Internet

So the first thing is that the coaching staff and players must determine the main goal of the return leg so that the whole team can strive. Certainly, the return rounds are a "test" of Duc Thang's coaching ability and an opportunity for young players to try their hand.

In recent seasons, SLNA has seen promising faces such as Xuan Thang, Tuan Tai and recently Van Duc. However, SLNA’s coaching staff does not have the talent to “polish rough diamonds” to help them mature like young players born in 1996-1997 such as Quang Hai, Thai Quy (Hanoi), Chau Ngoc Quang (HAGL), Dinh Trong (Saigon) or Dinh Khuong (S.Khanh Hoa)… It seems that SLNA’s coaching staff prefers to use foreign players with physical strength to compete for the ball with opponents rather than creating training opportunities for young players.

Regarding the recruitment of foreign players, SLNA is making a mistake of the “typist” so they have to sadly say goodbye to Henry, who has scored 6 goals in the first stage of the season. Olaha, a young striker who has only scored one goal, is kept to participate in the defense from a distance.

In our opinion, SLNA should not continue to waste money on foreign players who only play for a few months, because experience shows that with such short-term contracts, it is very difficult to get quality players. With a “choose your rice, choose your fish”, SLNA’s coaching staff needs to change their playing style to develop Olaha’s potential and boldly use domestic players.

With the trend of using foreign central defenders and naturalized players of Quang Nam, S.Khanh Hoa, Hanoi, HAGL, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong..., passing the ball high and long up for Olaha to press and accelerate will not be very effective. SLNA's midfield needs to have more short and medium distance passes, with surprise and moderate force so that Olaha has a chance to handle and shoot the ball.

Stabilizing the playing style is and will be the most important task of SLNA's coaching staff. In the first leg, it is not that the Nghe An team did not have good matches, even exceeding their limits. But SLNA is lacking the necessary stability, young players like Van Duc, flashing up and then sinking down, even Phi Son and Khac Ngoc, players who have been in the starting lineup quite a lot, still have fluctuating performance.

In our opinion, SLNA players’ physical strength is problematic, so they often run out of battery at the end of the match. There are many matches where SLNA conceded goals at the last minute because they could not physically keep up with their opponents, especially teams with strong foreign players like Hai Phong, Hanoi, and Than Quang Ninh. This is also a consequence of the team not having a conductor to regulate the ball distribution throughout the match, so they often stuff too much ball to one wing.

The bamboo is old but no shoots are seen yet. Photo: Internet

People often use poverty to cover up the team's shortcomings, such as not being able to keep good players, not being able to recruit good foreign players. But few people know that for the S.Khanh Hoa team, which is currently ranked 3rd in the rankings, the average salary is only about 15 million VND/player. The bonus for S.Khanh Hoa is only 300 million VND for a win, even for home and away matches. Most players, when playing less than 500 km, travel by car, stay in 3-star hotels...

No one understands SLNA like Nghe An fans, when they don’t dream of winning the championship, what they need is not a ranking. Vinh Stadium’s audience needs to see the “spirit of SLNA” in each match, that’s all!

N@T