'BOT' V.League: Clubs 'had to brake suddenly before they could even step on the gas'

(Baonghean.vn) - V.League 2017 was interrupted by 4 breaks to "serve" the national teams and U22 Vietnam. The division of V.League is like a BOT matrix, leaving the clubs to cry out. I think that when analyzing the failure of the U22 Vietnam team, VFF should also listen to the opinions of the clubs.

I don't understand why VFF decided to stop V.League 2017 for more than 2 months to focus on the national team competing in the U23 Asian qualifiers and SEA Games 29. Then, SEA Games 29 ended in a miserable loss and the teams were sluggish when restarting V.League 2017.

Obviously, those 4 breaks do not help U22 Vietnam and the team better, but make V.League like a road where drivers have to brake before they can press the accelerator. Traffic experts explain that the minimum distance between 2 BOT stations is 70 km so that with an average speed of 60 km/h, plus the adjustment in and out of the station, drivers have at least 1 hour to run at high speed.

Inadequate in every way

For professional football, the club only releases its players a few days before the training session, the tournament is not interrupted for that long. The suspension of the V-League for the U22 Vietnam team to perform their duties at the 29th SEA Games has caused frustration for sponsors, reduced the excitement of the audience, and caused difficulties for the club and players.

As the player who played the most for U22 Vietnam, when he returned to HAGL, Van Thanh's position was in the stands. Photo: Dung Nguyen

When players practice alone, the club has to pay a net salary, and the players lose physical strength due to lack of competition. Coach Huu Thang himself, after the failure at SEA Games 29, also admitted that the clubs must have physical trainers, not just the national team, to "stuff" physical strength like now.

Tactical thinking, basic skills and physical foundation must be formed from the club, not by long-term concentration as is currently the case. Even the instruction of Football Laws must be carried out from the club in a more thorough manner, otherwise childish mistakes like goalkeeper Phi Minh Long will continue to appear.

With the current training method, the players on duty at the national team and U22 Vietnam were also tired on the day they returned to the club because they themselves did not have a day off. In the last round of 17, almost all the HAGL players who were the core players for U22 Vietnam were given a day off by the club's coaching staff. Only Cong Phuong did not play the full 90 minutes, Van Toan came off the bench.

Perhaps the fact that national players are "locked" up for too long on the team, isolated from their clubs, families, and friends affects both their physical and mental health.

Striker Tuan Tai returns to SLNA with a knee injury. Photo: Dung Nguyen

As the highest level of Vietnamese football, V.League should be the foundation for the national team, but now V.League is considered the place where players are initially discovered. When joining the national team, players are re-learned, from drinking water, throwing the ball to the day of exhaustion, they are sent back to the club.

Head coaches always complain that when the national team gathers, they have to retrain players from jobs that should have been done well at the club level.

On the contrary, the clubs are not very happy when they have players joining the national team because of the many problems and risks that await them. That explains why when receiving players from the national team, the coaches always shake their heads in disappointment because the players are either bad-tempered or exhausted or injured.

Professionalization

No need to look far, U22 Thailand only gathered a week before SEA Games 29 and still won the gold medal. Thai League did not stop for months, everything continued as usual, near the gathering day, the head coach only needed to gather the players to assemble the team based on the physical strength and personal skills available from the club.

As long as V.League is still being divided into the current arrangement of breaks like BOT toll stations, Vietnamese football cannot use this professional tournament as a foundation for the national teams.

Vietnamese football is a latecomer, so I think VFF does not need to “innovate” new ways of doing things, but should focus on raising the level of its highest tournament. In the future, learning from this experience, VFF should only focus on short-term national team training, mainly assembling the squad.

AT