Youth football and school sports are on the rise.

(Baonghean)2012 marked the return of Nghe An's youth football with the 7th championship title for SLNA U17 after a 3-year hiatus, and SLNA U21 winning their 4th title after a 10-year wait. Alongside this, Nghe An's school sports made remarkable progress, reaching the top 10 out of 63 provinces and cities for the first time at the 8th National Phu Dong Sports Festival.

Youth football asserts its dominance.

After two unsuccessful seasons in youth tournaments in 2010 and 2011, in 2012, the young players from Nghe An province regained their former position by surpassing other youth training academies such as: Hoang Anh Gia Lai Football Academy, Viettel, SHB Da Nang, Dong Thap, PVF Youth Talent Training Center...



SLNA U17 team wins the championship for the 17th time.

The opening act of this "reclaiming the throne" was SLNA's U15 team reaching the national finals, followed by SLNA's U17 team crushing DT.LA's U17 team with a score more like a tennis set in the final match, affirming their absolute dominance in this U17 competition by winning their 7th championship (6 consecutive championships in 2004-2009), an achievement no other youth football center dared to dream of and one that is unlikely to break SLNA's record of championships. And in this tournament, Coach Ngo Quang Truong's players also swept both prestigious individual awards: Top Scorer (Tuan Tai - 5 goals) and Best Player (Dinh Chau).

Next, in the U21 National Championship – Vietnam's number one youth tournament – ​​after a 10-year wait, SLNA won their 4th championship title, showcasing an attractive style of play from the group stage to the final and easily defeating the host team Ninh Thuan 2-0 in the final. With this victory and championship title, SLNA surpassed The Cong and Da Nang to become the best team in the history of the U21 National Championship, winning the title for the 4th time. Besides the championship trophy, the team from Nghe An also swept the most prestigious individual awards, with Quang Nam alone winning two titles: Best Player and Top Scorer.

Alongside this, coach Dinh Van Dung also introduced a series of young talents that any V.League team would covet, such as Quang Nam, Dinh Bao, Hoang Thinh, Phi Son… This further proves that even without the investment in building grand and well-equipped football training centers like Hoang Anh Gia Lai, SHB Da Nang, Hanoi T&T, or Viettel… SLNA is still the number one youth football training center today, with its collection of championship trophies from the U17, U19, and U21 national tournaments in the club's traditional exhibition room reaching nearly 20; and players from Nghe An still make up the majority of the national teams!

In that success, we must also mention the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament – ​​a "solid foundation" and "talent discovery center" for the SLNA training academy. This year marks the 16th edition of the tournament, continuing to attract many talented young players from all over Nghe An province. According to Mr. Bui Danh Tieu – a scout for Song Lam Nghe An Club, who meticulously watches every match of the children's teams to assess the skills of young players and select those with potential for the Song Lam academy: Never before has the number of athletes "scored" by Song Lam coaches been as high as this year, with 64 children and nearly 20 teenagers selected by the SLNA Youth Training Department.

Remarkable progress in school sports.

In the early months of 2012, Nghe An successfully organized the Phu Dong Sports Festival from the district to the provincial level. Leveraging its strengths as a province with a rich tradition of academic excellence, in June 2012, Nghe An was honored to be chosen by the Ministry of Education and Training to host the National Phu Dong Sports Festival for Region III. At this event, the host team, Nghe An, won 3 gold medals, 13 silver medals, and 19 bronze medals, ranking 5th with 680 points out of 12 participating teams.

The initial success at the regional Phu Dong Sports Festival has laid the foundation for the young students of Nghe An to confidently join the aspiration to go faster, higher, and further in participating in the 8th National Phu Dong Sports Festival in 2012, held in Can Tho City. For the first time, Nghe An sent the largest number of athletes to this festival, with 181 athletes competing in 15 out of 19 sports. This is considered a display of Nghe An's school sports strength, embodying the theme "The Phu Dong Strength on the Path of Integration and Development".

At this year's National Student Sports Festival, despite competing with many provinces and cities that have strong school sports movements, the athletes from Nghe An, through their efforts to surpass themselves, competing in a spirit of honesty and sportsmanship, and upholding the pride of the people of Nghe An, achieved outstanding results and for the first time entered the top 10 in the overall medal standings. 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 overall with 1 gold medal in high school football, 1 gold medal in primary school football, and 1 silver medal in junior high school football. Other sports such as taekwondo won 2 gold medals; chess, athletics, and vovinam each won 1 gold medal… The success at this year's Student Sports Festival has contributed to raising the status of sports in Nghe An and serves as a foundation for the province to host the 9th National Student Sports Festival in 2016.

High-performance sports and grassroots sports continue to thrive.

This year, Nghe An also successfully hosted many national tournaments in various sports such as: the 10th Central Vietnam Open Youth Chess Tournament, the National Youth Petanque Championship, the National Men's and Women's Kickboxing Championship, the 16th National Traditional Wrestling Championship… At these tournaments, the host team Nghe An made remarkable progress and achieved high rankings, most notably in kickboxing with 8 athletes reaching the finals and winning 5 gold medals, 3 silver medals, and 6 bronze medals. In 2012, Nghe An athletes achieved high results, bringing home …. gold medals, … silver medals, … bronze medals at national and international tournaments.



A cross-country race for the community.

Along with the successful organization of national tournaments, with many professional athletes winning medals at domestic and international competitions, numerous grassroots sports events organized by agencies, sectors, and provinces have also been held, such as: the Community Cross-Country Race, the Traditional Sports Tournament of the Provincial Agencies Bloc, the 10th Traditional Badminton Tournament of the Party Committee of the Business Bloc of Nghe An Province, the Nghe An Newspaper Open Sports Tournament, the Youth Volleyball Tournament in Economic Zones, the Provincial Family Sports Tournament, the First Truong Son Club Tennis Tournament, the Provincial Badminton Championship for all age groups, the Traditional Sports Tournament of the Provincial Fatherland Front, the Senior Citizens' Sports Tournament, etc. Dozens of provincial-level tournaments and hundreds of district-level, sectoral, unit, and local tournaments have attracted thousands of amateur athletes of all ages and professions, creating beneficial playgrounds for all citizens and contributing to the widespread development of the socialized sports movement in Nghe An, laying a solid foundation for the development of high-performance sports.

Duc Chuyen