Who will break Cong Vinh's record?
(Baonghean.vn) - Until now, Cong Vinh still holds the record of playing time of 173 minutes for a European club at Portuguese club Leixoes. It seems that it will be a long time before a Vietnamese player surpasses this Nghe An-born striker.
Nghe An striker Cong Vinh ended the season with 14 goals for T&T, becoming the best domestic striker in V-League 2009. Introduced by the coach of the Vietnam national team at that time, Mr. Calisto, Cong Vinh packed his bags and went to Portugal to play.
173 minutes and 1 goal
Joining Leixoes SC, Le Cong Vinh is the first Vietnamese player to play in one of the strongest leagues in Europe, the Portuguese Football Championship. Of course, this is an event that attracts the attention of Vietnamese and international media.
With his good form, Cong Vinh integrated very quickly. In the first friendly matches at the new club Leixoes SC, Le Cong Vinh scored two goals in the matches against Custoías and Padroense.
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| To date, Cong Vinh's 3 matches, 173 minutes on the field and 1 goal is still a record that has stood for 10 years. Photo: VFF |
It took nearly a month for Cong Vinh to make his official debut against UD Leiria on October 4 (Leixoes won 3-2). He played the entire match as a left midfielder and had a few chances but failed to score. But that did not stop Cong Vinh from becoming the first Vietnamese player to play professional football in Europe.
Leixoes' home match against Casa Pia in the Portuguese Cup was Vinh's second official match. He scored the opening goal of the match, contributing to the home team's 2-1 victory. To date, Cong Vinh's 3 matches, 173 minutes on the pitch and 1 goal is still a record that has stood for 10 years.
Just prepare, not easy
Recently, when seeing the coach of Sint-Truidense Club (Belgium) put Cong Phuong on the field in the 70th minute when the home team was losing 0-4 to Brugge FC, people were worried. Sure enough, Cong Phuong could not help Sint-Truidense score and instead lost 2 more goals to championship candidate Brugge.
As for Cong Phuong, he returned to the bench for 3 matches, then disappeared from the reserve list for 14 matches before boarding the plane back to Vietnam to play for Ho Chi Minh City without scoring a single goal. Looking at the path of Vietnamese players going abroad and Cong Phuong himself, this is also the third time, Mr. Duc's thoughts are quite simple: "Whether Cong Phuong will be successful or not is unknown. If he doesn't go, he doesn't know if he will be successful or not. In terms of expertise, even if Cong Phuong sits on the bench for a year in Europe, it's okay."
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| Van Hau is the only player who can break this record. Photo: Heerenveen |
The only player who can surpass the 173 minutes and 1 goal of Cong Vinh 10 years ago is defender Van Hau. He just played for SC Heerenveen for 4 minutes in the match against Roda JC in the Dutch National Cup (KNVB Cup). But right after that, information in the Omrop Fryslan (Netherlands) said that Heerenveen's Business Director Martin Koopman had instructed coach Johnny Jansen to put Doan Van Hau on the field with the aim of attracting sponsorship related to the Vietnamese market that needs further verification.
However, to be able to replace left-back Sherel Floranu, Van Hau still has to try very hard. For European countries, compliments like those from coach Johnny Jansen are sometimes simply polite encouragement for players.
Playing abroad is an opportunity to improve players, especially playing for clubs in Europe. But in the past 10 years, since Cong Vinh, we have only had 3 players come here to play and everything that is happening shows that it has never been simple. Can Van Hau break the record of 173 minutes and 1 goal that Cong Vinh achieved 10 years ago?
