Vietnamese football reaches out to the region

But the strong impression of the rise of Vietnamese football currently belongs to women's football and futsal with their own convincing and sustainable way of doing things. For women's football, when continuously being the "king" of the region with both domestic and foreign coaches, the rise process is not easy but is taking place firmly and systematically. The good organization of national championships and annual youth tournaments helps women's football have a foundation, have steps, inherit steps, and be able to overcome all obstacles even though opponents try to naturalize in large numbers like the Philippines or even Thailand.

Qualifying for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is a great milestone for the Vietnamese women's football team under the guidance of domestic coach Mai Duc Chung. Stepping into the light of the World Cup, the female players will have the opportunity to learn and improve. But it is inevitable that they will have to suffer defeat against big teams. Here, facing the world's talents is a dream, success and failure are the bricks that build the process of rising to the level of women's football as well as the entire football industry.

Vietnam futsal team. Photo: Bongdaplus

With futsal, the Vietnamese team has twice qualified for the 2016 and 2021 World Cups and both times passed the group stage very spectacularly. However, those responsible for futsal are not satisfied with the results achieved, although domestic coach Pham Minh Giang has completed his task excellently. A foreign coach with a record of winning the world championship, Mr. Diego Giustozzi, from Argentina, was invited to bring Vietnamese futsal to a new level.

Accordingly, the selection of the force took place objectively, unexpectedly but reasonably and emotionally. Friendly matches were to test the force, techniques and tactics without aiming to win the match to satisfy too soon. Especially under the hands of the world champion, the students played confidently, even though they were behind, they still rose up strongly to win a resounding victory over the "big guy" Korea (5-1) at the 2022 Asian Futsal Championship taking place in Kuwait. Once again, Vietnamese football, specifically Vietnamese futsal, defeated a continental giant, continuing the achievements of men's and women's football in the arduous but very proud and confident process of reaching new heights today.

Of course, no one dares to affirm that Vietnamese football, including men's, women's, futsal, and beach football, is approaching the continental level even though we have successively "defeated" continental giants such as China, Korea, and India... But the very successful process of taking shortcuts and getting ahead of futsal (entering the World Cup twice) and women's football (entering the World Cup for the first time when the number of participating teams was expanded from 24 to 32 teams) is an invaluable lesson for men's football - the king of king sports - in the future when similar opportunities open up.

And when the Vietnamese men's team has entered the final qualifying round of the World Cup, the road to the ticket to the biggest festival of the football world is very close, so implementing big, decisive, strategic measures is extremely necessary now. Not only the Vietnamese team but also the next teams such as U23, U20 Vietnam really need a right direction, a good way of doing things such as choosing talented foreign coaches, training abroad, competing regularly in V-League 1,2... to quickly catch up, quickly approach the continental level in reality. Because the qualifying round of every tournament starts from the continent with predetermined tickets. Winning tickets in the continent means being qualified to step onto the world stage like the futsal team, the women's team or U20 of Hoang Duc, Quang Hai used to do and do well.

Therefore, the important victories against the continental giants as mentioned above are the premise for Vietnamese football to move forward, to take more solid steps on the road ahead...