AFF Suzuki Cup: Coach Park Hang Seo and the immense pressure!

The reason is because the AFF Suzuki Cup, the most important tournament in 2018 for Vietnamese football, will start on November 8 and according to plan, the Vietnamese team will gather on October 11, which is only 5 days after the end of V-League 2018.

And to prepare for that tournament, Coach Park Hang Seo and his assistants will still have to do the familiar work of going to V-League stadiums every weekend to monitor, select and select the best personnel for the Vietnam team.

The respect of regional opponents is also a great pressure for coach Park Hang Seo and his team.

In theory, after the success at the U23 Asian Cup and ASIAD 2018, the U23 players will be the core for the upcoming training session of the Vietnamese team for the AFF Suzuki Cup and not long after that, the 2019 Asian Cup.

But that is not enough for the "conquest" in the AFF Suzuki Cup, a tournament that is originally for the national team level, meaning there is no age limit. From the past matches at ASIAD, Coach Park Hang Seo has known which personnel of U23 Vietnam should and need to be retained and which are the key positions that need to be supplemented and reinforced to enhance the strength of the national team, at the same time creating fair competition for the players.

Winning the runner-up position in the Asian Cup and then reaching the semi-finals of the men's football at the ASIAD, Vietnamese football has been raised to the continental level, but that is still only at the youth level. More than anyone, Coach Park Hang Seo understands the responsibility and pressure that he and his students have to bear when coming to the AFF Suzuki Cup as one of the championship candidates of the tournament, if not the number 1 candidate.

Ten years after the first Southeast Asian championship, the Vietnamese team is facing a historic opportunity with a force that is considered abundant, the players play with confidence and importantly, the trust that fans and the media have for coach Park Hang Seo and his team is huge. But that does not mean we are allowed to be subjective when, in addition to the pressure from ourselves, the competition from opponents is not small.

Malaysia, the opponent in Group A with the Vietnam team, also passed the knockout round of the U23 Asian Cup and is inherently a formidable foe, so coach Park Hang Seo cannot underestimate them. Myanmar also showed their ambition to overthrow the team and compete for one of the two tickets in this group to the semi-finals.

In an interview with the press in Vietnam after returning home, Coach Park Hang Seo frankly explained: “In China, where we were runners-up, U23 Vietnam was a team that challenged other teams. However, at this point, we are a team that opponents must find a way to overcome.”

Looking at group B, where the potential opponents that the Vietnamese team could meet in the semi-finals are Indonesia and Thailand, they are not weak at all. Even the Philippines, with more than half of the main squad having naturalized players, cannot be underestimated.

Vietnam is now the name that brings "inspiration" to all opponents at the AFF Suzuki Cup, just defeating or at least drawing will bring them confidence and Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia or the Philippines will do everything to achieve that goal.

“The Ruler of Southeast Asia” in a recent article, Bola (Indonesia) gave the Vietnamese team that nickname and predicted that Indonesia would face many difficulties if they met the red-shirted army in the semi-finals.

And not only Indonesia has such special respect for the Vietnamese team, so the pressure on coach Park Hang Seo's team at the AFF Suzuki Cup comes from the opponents and the team itself with the responsibility to surpass itself, with its capacity having been assessed at a high level.