Vietnamese football falls behind due to lack of playground for young players
In advanced football regions in Asia or even in Thailand, the youth tournament system has many differences compared to youth tournaments in Vietnam. Vietnam's youth tournaments are diverse, but are heavy on achievements and lack a playground for young talents approaching professionalism.
Thai football goes one step ahead
In the past 29 years since 1995, the Vietnam team has only won Thailand 3 times, lost 18 times and drawn 8 times. Overcoming Thailand is not a simple story, let aloneWorld Cup dreamThat is the demand for change in Vietnamese football.
For many years, Vietnamese football has not been able to compare with Thai football, if considered from the perspective of the National Team. However, in the Thai youth football tournament system, there are too many differences compared to the youth tournament systems in Vietnam.
Thailand’s national youth football league system has 5 age groups as follows: U19, U16 and U14 (playing 11 players); and U12 and U10 (playing 7 players). Thailand even established the PEA U23 Youngster League 2024 to help young players have more opportunities to compete.
Accordingly, the players must be under 23 years old (as of the year of registration), have Thai nationality and have never registered with any other club in tournaments organized by the Football Association of Thailand (FAT). There are 8 clubs that will compete in a round-robin format, home and away. The first season has 56 matches, each club will play 14 matches.
Vietnamese football is still at a standstill
Meanwhile in Vietnam, with the age from 15-23, the age when players need to compete a lot, in Vietnam, if they do not participate in international tournaments likeU19, U21, at most a youth team of an age group in Vietnam can only play 15 matches per year, from the qualifying round to the final round. Stopping at the qualifying round, a youth team only has 8 to 10 matches. Previously, there was the U19 International tournament or the U21 International tournament, but now it no longer exists. The plan to organize the U17 National Cup and U19 National Cup is also pending.
At the level from U9 to U13, if advanced football foundations only organize Festivals to gather many young football teams to participate, create a playground and a purpose of competition for players of this age. In the system of football tournaments organized by Vietnam, the Youth and Children tournaments belong to the official competition system and lead to many consequences of the disease of achievement or finding the real age of the players.
According to experts, the age from U9 - U13 is the golden age for children to develop their qualities naturally, to be trained and nurtured in skills and techniques to perfect themselves. However, for the goal of winning medals or championships, most children are trained in competition skills, leading to early development but difficulty in integrating when playing professionally.
It is easy to see that at the U15 and U17 levels, the Vietnamese youth teams are not inferior to the teams in the region, but when they reach the U19 or U23 levels, they gradually stagnate and lose their breath. Young players aged 21-23 in Vietnam mostly play in the Third, Second or First Division, not many of them are boldly given the opportunity to play in the V.League.
In Vietnam, only HAGL, Hanoi, Viettel or SLNA are the teams that dare to use young players in the V.League arena, but for them to compete for an official position is not easy. Or the clubs are forced to loan them to play in the First and Second Divisions to gain experience before calling them back after a few years.
Youth league system like no other
The adversity of Vietnamese football also occurred at the U21 Tournament when player Phan Ba Quyen, under 21 years old, was loaned to 2 teams by SLNA to help him have the opportunity to compete and gain experience, but was eventually banned from playing for SLNA at the 2022 National U21 Tournament because the Regulations did not allow it. This shows the inadequacy in the way Vietnam organizes youth tournaments. Even the U19 or U21 tournaments still have many national team players or players who have turned professional.
Learning about Japanese Football, J.League 1 teams - Japan's highest league, the teams only focus on two very important youth tournaments, U15 and U18. For example, Tokyo FC, this team has 02 U15 teams and 1 U18 team, but has more than 4,000 athletes aged 12 and under, considered as junior classes, satellites or scattered in school football systems. Although there is only 01 U18 team, these are carefully screened players, compete in many tournaments and can completely play professionally at any time.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, there are not many training centers with hundreds of athletes from U9 to U12 like Song Lam Nghe An, Hanoi, Viettel or HAGL. Currently, Song Lam Nghe An has 25 basic gifted classes in districts/cities/towns with about 500 athletes, but compared to Japanese and Thai teams, it is still a very modest number.
In order for young players to develop comprehensively, many clubs and centers have been forced to choose to send the U14 team to participate in the U15 tournament, or the U17 team to compete in the U19 tournament, or 17-19 players to play in the U21 tournament. Only then will many players have the opportunity to develop and play in the V.League. Any 17-year-old player who is given the opportunity to play in the U17, U19 and U21 tournaments will develop better than his peers.
I think the Vietnam Football Federation should reconsider the importance of youth tournaments such as U9, U11 and U13 in the Vietnamese youth tournament system. There should be more tournaments such as the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament in each locality, and more National U9, U11 and U13 tournaments so that young players have a playground to play, compete and learn from each other, not to win at all costs./.
