Revealing the "noble person" who helped Phan Van Duc from SLNA to the national team

Phan Van Duc is one of the U23 Vietnam players who was called up the latest in the list of players participating in the 2018 AFC U23 Championship. This is the tournament where the SLNA midfielder has surprised many people with his brilliant performances. Until now, Van Duc is an important member of the Vietnam National Team participating in the 2018 AFF Cup.

Van Duc played at the 2014 AFC U19 Championship in Myanmar. However, he did not appear much for a long time after that due to injury. It was not until the 2017 season that this midfielder was mentioned a lot when he regularly played in the V.League in the SLNA shirt.

Before the U23 Asia, it was not coach Park Hang Seo but assistant Lee Young Jin who discovered Phan Van Duc thanks to the times he went to the stadium to watch this player compete.

In fact, Mr. Lee was the one who suggested Phan Van Duc join the U23 Vietnam team early. However, this idea was opposed by many people because they thought he had no experience in competition. Finally, Van Duc was called up and he had an extremely successful Asian Cup.

Phan Van Duc is playing very well for the national team. Photo: Duc Cuong

Talking about his number 1 assistant position, Coach Park Hang Seo once shared: “Lee Young Jin is my brain. During the preparation for the tournaments, I also had many problems that I could not solve. Fortunately, Lee came up with the idea, so I only had to decide whether to implement it or not and at what time.”

That's right, it was coach Lee Joung Jin who directly accompanied Mr. Park to each field in the V.League to select personnel for the team. During the training process, he was also the one who helped the Korean coach plan each training session.

Many times, he himself had to demonstrate to the Vietnamese players every single move on the field. Before each match, Mr. Lee plays an important role in preparing the procedures of the Vietnamese team.

An all too familiar image is that in Vietnam's national team matches, coach Park Hang Seo often turns to consult the opinions of this 55-year-old assistant before making his decision.