Bau Tu - the man who brought Vietnamese futsal to the continental playground

If in 11-a-side football, Mr. Duc, Mr. Thang and recently Mr. Hien are considered as the sponsors, then in the field of futsal, Mr. Tu is recognized similarly. In fact, more than a decade ago, this Nghe An man born in 1963 initially intended to build an 11-a-side football team for Thai Son Nam company, but due to the company's modest staff and budget, he had to switch to futsal.

The arduous journey

At that time, when futsal was still a strange sport to Vietnamese people, Mr. Tu rolled up his sleeves to find documents and clips to explore and build the movement and create the name Thai Son Nam. And just like Mr. Duc's direction for HAGL, Mr. Tu also initially turned to Thailand.

He was also the one who boldly let goalkeeper Dang Phuoc Anh (Thai Son Nam) go to "study abroad" at Thailand's top futsal club GH Bank Chonburi. At GH Bank Chonburi, in addition to competing in the 2012 Asian Club Futsal Championship, Phuoc Anh took the opportunity to learn and collect all the good things from the Thai people to apply to Vietnamese Futsal.

Tu's tears when Vietnam futsal team beat Japan 5-4 at World Cup 2016. Photo: Internet

When he realized that Thai coaches only helped Vietnamese Futsal achieve average results in the region, Mr. Tu personally traveled everywhere, from Brazil to Spain and Italy, spending a lot of money to get good coaches for Vietnamese Futsal.

After a few years, Mr. Tu finally tasted the sweet fruit when the Vietnam Futsal team had its first victory in Spain by defeating Malaga's UMA Club in the early morning of August 24, 2016.

Vietnam Futsal first participated in the World Cup in 2016 and gave the audience many thrilling matches such as the quarter-final win over Japan 5-4 at the 2016 World Cup, the 4-3 win over Indonesia in Group A, the 2017 Southeast Asian Futsal Championship...

Mr. Tu is the "midwife" for the Vietnam futsal championship in the past 11 years. Of course, Thai Son Nam - the cradle of Vietnamese futsal is still the team with the most championships, 8 out of 11 times the biggest futsal tournament in Vietnam was held. Mr. Tu's team is showing "unrivaled" and has almost no worthy opponents in the country.

6 years ago, Thai Son Nam Club started its journey to the big sea, the continental playground. In the first two tournaments, Thai Son Nam lost miserably, each season only winning 1 draw. The owner of the exclusive distribution business of electrical equipment, electrical conductors, network cables and telecommunication cables... was not discouraged, he paused for 1 year to continue traveling to Europe to "find a teacher" determined to bring Vietnamese 5-a-side football to a new level.

Sweet fruit

In the 2015 season, under the guidance of coach Bruno Garcia (who helped the Vietnamese futsal team participate in the World Cup for the first time in 2016), Thai Son Nam, from the bottom of the table in the previous two participations, proudly finished the group stage in the leading position.

In the semi-finals, they only lost 1-2 to Al-Qadsia (Kuwait) on penalty kicks, after a 3-3 draw in regular and extra time. Then, coach Bruno and his students defeated Iraq representative Naft Al-Wasat with a score of 7-3, to write history in the third place overall.

For three consecutive years, Thai Son Nam has been in the top 4 strongest teams in Asia. Photo: Internet

After coach Bruno Garcia left, coach Miuguel Rodrigo took over, Thai Son Nam also won third place in the continental tournament in 2017 held at home in Ho Chi Minh City. Recently, in Indonesia, coach Miuguel Rodrigo and his team "won" the runner-up title at the 2018 Asian Club Futsal Championship.

For three consecutive years, Thai Son Nam has been in the top 4 strongest teams in Asia, winning the runner-up position once and finishing third twice. An impressive achievement after only a decade of Mr. Tu spending his efforts and money to build the movement.

If 4 or 5 years ago, Asian futsal clubs were very happy when they were drawn to meet Thai Son Nam, now, the favorite team of Mr. Tu is the opponent that many teams want to avoid. Simply put, Thai Son Nam has become the leading futsal team in the most populous continent in the world. The national futsal team with Thai Son Nam players as the core has also become a strong team at the continental level.

First credit goes to Mr. Tu!