Youth football and school sports are on the rise

(Baonghean)2012 marked the return of Nghe An youth football with the 7th championship of U17 SLNA after 3 years of being dethroned and U21 SLNA crowned for the 4th time after 10 years of waiting. Along with that, Nghe An school sports made great progress when for the first time entering the top 10 out of 63 provinces and cities at the 8th National Phu Dong Sports Festival.

Youth football asserts its position

After two seasons of 2010 and 2011 without any trophies in youth tournaments, in 2012, the young players of Nghe An regained their original position when surpassing other youth training centers such as: Hoang Anh Gia Lai Football Academy, Viettel, SHB Da Nang, Dong Thap, PVF Young Talent Football Training Center...



U17 SLNA crowned for the 17th time.

Opening the "reclaiming the throne" was U15 SLNA reaching the national finals, followed by U17 SLNA crushing U17 DT.LA by more than a tennis set in the final match to affirm their absolute strength in this playground for the U17 age group when they won the championship for the 7th time (6 consecutive championships in 2004 - 2009), something that no youth football center has dared to dream of and it is difficult to break the record number of championships of SLNA. And in this tournament, this year, the students of coach Ngo Quang Truong also won two prestigious individual titles of the tournament: Top scorer (Tuan Tai - 5 goals) and Best player of the tournament (Dinh Chau).

Next, in the national U21 tournament - the number 1 youth tournament in Vietnam, after 10 years of waiting, SLNA won the championship for the 4th time when they performed beautifully from the group stage to the final round and easily defeated the home team Ninh Thuan with a score of 2-0 in the final match. With this victory and championship, SLNA surpassed The Cong and Da Nang to become the best team in the history of the national U21 tournament when they won the championship for the 4th time. In addition to the championship trophy, the Nghe An team also won the most prestigious individual titles when Quang Nam alone won 2 titles: Best Player and Top Scorer.

Along with that, Coach Dinh Van Dung also introduced a series of young talents that any team in V.League would crave such as: Quang Nam, Dinh Bao, Hoang Thinh, Phi Son... this continues to prove that even though it is not invested in building like the magnificent and convenient football training centers such as Hoang Anh Gia Lai, SHB Da Nang, Hanoi T&T or Viettel... SLNA is still the number 1 youth football training "furnace" today when the collection of Championship Cups of the national U17, U19, U21 tournaments at the traditional showroom of SLNA Club has reached approximately 20; Nghe An players still make up the majority in the national teams!

In that success, we must also mention the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament - a "solid foundation", "a place to discover talents"... for the SLNA training "furnace". This year, this tournament has entered its 16th time, the tournament continues to attract many young players who are good at studying and playing football from all over Nghe An to participate. According to Mr. Bui Danh Tieu - "scout" of Song Lam Nghe An Club, who watched every match of the children's football teams "watching the legs and feet" of the young players to select talented players for the Song Lam "furnace": There has never been a season where the number of athletes "rated" by Song Lam coaches is as high as this year, with 64 children's players and nearly 20 teenage players selected by the SLNA Club's Youth Training Board.

Remarkable progress of school sports

In the first months of 2012, Nghe An successfully organized the Phu Dong Sports Festival (HKPĐ) from district to provincial levels. With the position and strength of a province with a rich tradition of learning, in June 2012, Nghe An was honored to be chosen by the Ministry of Education and Training to host the National HKPĐ in Region III. At this playground, the host team Nghe An won 3 gold medals, 13 silver medals, 19 bronze medals, ranking 5th with 680 points out of 12 teams.

The initial success in the regional HKPĐ has created a premise for Nghe An school youth to confidently join the aspiration to go faster, higher, further to participate in the 8th National HKPĐ-2012 held in Can Tho City. For the first time, Nghe An sent the largest number of athletes to this congress with 181 athletes competing in 15/19 sports. This is considered a demonstration of Nghe An school sports force, demonstrating the theme "Phu Dong's strength on the path of integration and development".

At this national HKPĐ, although having to compete with many provinces and cities with strong school sports movements, but with the effort to surpass themselves, compete with the spirit of noble honesty, upholding the pride of Nghe An people, Nghe An athletes have had outstanding achievements and for the first time entered the top 10 on the medal table. Nghe An athletes won 7 gold medals, 7 silver medals and 8 bronze medals, ranking 9th out of 63 participating delegations. In football, Nghe An ranked first with 1 gold medal in high school football, 1 gold medal in primary school football and 1 silver medal in secondary school football. Other subjects such as taekwondo won 2 gold medals; chess, athletics, vovinam each won 1 gold medal... The success at this year's HKPĐ has contributed to raising the position of Nghe An sports and is the premise for our province to host the 9th National HKPĐ in 2016.

High-performance sports and movements continue to develop strongly.

This year, Nghe An also successfully hosted many national tournaments in many disciplines such as: The 10th Central Region Youth Chess Tournament, National Petanque Championship for Juniors, National Men's and Women's Kickboxing Championship, 16th National Wrestling Championship... At those tournaments, the host team Nghe An made great progress and achieved high rankings, most notably in kickboxing with 8 athletes competing in the finals and winning 5 gold medals, 3 silver medals, 6 bronze medals. In 2012, Nghe An athletes with high achievements brought home ... gold medals, ... silver medals, ... bronze medals in national and international tournaments.



Cross-country race for the community.

Along with the successful organization of national tournaments, many professional athletes won medals at domestic and international tournaments, many grassroots sports tournaments of agencies, branches and provinces were also organized, such as: Cross-country running tournament for the community, Traditional Sports Tournament of Provincial Agencies, 10th Traditional Badminton Tournament of Nghe An Provincial Business Party Committee, Nghe An Newspaper Sports Tournament, Youth Volleyball Tournament in economic zones, Provincial Sports Family Tournament, First Truong Son Club Tennis Tournament, Provincial Badminton Championship for all ages, Provincial Fatherland Front Traditional Sports Tournament, Senior Sports Tournament... Dozens of provincial tournaments, hundreds of district, branch, unit and local tournaments have attracted thousands of non-professional athletes of all ages and professions to participate, creating useful playgrounds for all people, making the socialized sports movement in Nghe An increasingly develop widely, creating a solid foundation for the development of high-performance sports.

Duc Chuyen