AFF Cup 2018: "Shocks" in the "lowlands" of world football
(Baonghean.vn) - For the first time in the history of the Southeast Asian Football Championship, there is a national team participating led by a pair of head coaches. That is the Cambodian team with 2 coaches, Keisuke Honda and Felix Dalmas. Not only that, in the Cambodian team participating in the AFF Cup 2018, there is also a 16-year-old player, Sieng Chanthea.
In Group A of the AFF Cup 2018, where Vietnam is competing, Laos and Cambodia are considered the “underdogs”. The team is preparing for the AFF Cup 2018 in a truly unique way, both in terms of coaching staff and players.
Coach "grinder"
In March 2017, after 8 consecutive defeats, Korean coach Lee Tae Hoon said goodbye to the Cambodian team. Brazilian coach Leonardo Vittorino was determined to make a “revolution” in this team with top priority on discipline in tactics and hard training, and said no to “star disease”.
Young talents such as 20-year-old midfielder Chrerng Polroth and 23-year-old striker Chan Vathanaka are important players for coach Vittorino. According to this coach, playing for Fujieda MYFC (a team in Japan's J3 League) has helped Vathanaka pass on his professional playing and training style to other players.
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| Honda will be the "Online Coach" for the match against the Vietnam National Team. Photo: Internet |
But all that this coach left behind was a minimal 1-0 victory over Afghanistan at home in the Olympic Stadium. Coach Leonardo Vitorino publicly decided to say goodbye to the Cambodian team, not long after the 0-5 loss to the Vietnamese team in the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers. In 7 official matches for the national team, he helped Cambodia win 1 and lose 6 matches.
In October 2017, the Football Federation of Cambodia (FFC) decided to appoint Kazunori Ohara as the interim coach of the national team.Kazunori is a Japanese football expert, currently holding the position of Technical Director (GĐKT) of FFC.
The coach, born in 1972, also led the Cambodian team as an interim coach for 2 matches in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers in March 2016. The team lost 0-4 to Singapore and 0-1 to Afghanistan. After that, he also coached the Cambodian U19 team, helping the team win a friendly tournament in Chiang Rai (Thailand) recently.
Recently, FFC changed the national team coach again, this time not one but two names Honda and Felix Dalmas. According to Fox Sports Asia, the Cambodian Football Federation cannot let Honda be the head coach alone because this star does not have a coaching certificate according to the AFC regulations applied from 2019.
Not to mention, 32-year-old Honda still registers to play weekly for Melbourne Victory Club under a previously signed contract with the Australian team. Therefore, Honda is working without salary and can consider the job of head coach of the Cambodian team as just an "internship" period for this midfielder before he retires and officially moves into coaching career.
Honda's counterpart in the Cambodian national team is Argentine coach Felix Dalmas. Dalmas is only 30 years old and as a player he only played in lower-level tournaments in Asia. Accordingly, Dalmas will direct the Cambodian players to practice according to Honda's training plan when the coach is absent and report back to his counterpart via video.
At the AFF Cup 2018, due to his busy playing for Melbourne FC, Honda will only lead the Cambodian team in 2 matches against Myanmar and Laos, while Felix will be in charge of the 2 matches against Vietnam and Malaysia. Very strange!
New "Pele"?
According to the Cambodian media, 16-year-old striker Sieng Chanthea has been called up to the national team to prepare for the AFF Suzuki Cup 2018. Currently, the player born in 2002 is only 16 years old and will almost certainly become the youngest name to participate in the AFF Suzuki Cup 2018 finals.
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| Sieng Chanthea - The new "Pele" of the Cambodian team? Photo: Internet |
Up to now, except for the "King of Football Pele" who joined the Brazilian team at the age of 16, no player, including Messi and Ronaldo, the world's football prodigies, has had this honor.
At the 2017 Southeast Asian U15 tournament held in Thailand, Sieng Chanthea won the title of "Top scorer" of the tournament with 5 goals after 5 matches in the group stage, including 1 opening goal against U15 Vietnam (still lost 1-2 to U15 Vietnam).
Although Sieng Chanthea had shone in the Cambodian U15, U16, U17 and U19 national teams, the decision to call Sieng Chanthea up was still a real surprise to Cambodian experts and media.
The fact that Cambodia called up very young players to the national team and applied the tactic of "rotating" in the technical cabin's leadership position makes people even more surprised when looking at the "lowland" of world football.
