V-League and youth teams

A quality football tournament, specifically the V-League, does not mean only having to do with financial conditions, facilities, the tournament going well, determining the champion and relegated team, the team participating in regional and continental tournaments... is enough.

Currently, in the V-League, there are teams that are considered strong thanks to investment in buying good teachers and good students, playing well but the youth teams are weak, some have some, some do not. Of course, that is just a way of playing football to achieve temporary results, definitely not a fundamental, long-term way of doing business. Saying that and knowing that, but for a long time, Vietnamese football has not had many teams that have grown strong thanks to deep roots as desired.

V-League 2022 will be played in a home and away format with 26 rounds. Photo courtesy of Minh Duc

Remember, people used to just need to spend money to buy a "spot" in V-League like the previous story of The Cong, Military Zone 4... which were "sold" to other teams. It is difficult to say that recently, Vietnamese football has had any team that has gone from the 3rd division to the 2nd division, the 1st division and then to the V-League? Most of them "take shortcuts, get ahead" to find the highest division or accept not being relegated, staying in the 1st division for example. Maybe the difficulty limits the intelligence, maybe without strength there is no ambition because doing football is expensive, not easy to succeed. The story of trying hard to win the throne a couple of times and then falling down like Long An, Dong Thap or Binh Duong,Lam River Nghe Anfor example, is not uncommon.

Strangely, many teams can only "feed" the first team, while the youth teams are doing well and still persist in the V-League thanks to countless ways of pulling. Hai Phong has borrowed from Song Lam to Hoang Anh Gia Lai, and now who knows where else they will borrow to meet the sky-high ambitions of the owner and many fans who specialize in entering the stadium to light up flares as a "specialty brand" but do not see any youth team shine in the annual U-Leagues?

Currently, the only fundamental youth teams are Song Lam Nghe An, Hanoi FC, Viettel, Hoang Anh Gia Lai... But even here, there are huge differences. The youth teams of Hanoi FC and Song Lam Nghe An, for example. A place with great potential should have foreign teachers, foreign curriculum, advanced methods, and teams that regularly exchange and compete domestically and internationally. A place with free practice, free competition, internal, brothers against brothers and vice versa. When entering the U tournaments, the first generation of Song Lam Nghe An did not have difficulty winning all the awards. But when it came to the U17, U19 and above groups, oh my, every time they met PVF, Viettel or Hanoi FC, they would definitely win the Bronze Medal and the Style Award? It is because they have the potential to apply new curriculum, new sports science, so their physique, physical strength, and skills are better.

Tan Long Group has decided to establish a youth football team to participate in the 2022 National Third Division Football Tournament. Photo courtesy of Duc Anh

Right from the U19 generation, Hanoi FC and Viettel introduced Van Truong and Van Khang to be the leaders of U20 Vietnam, the bright stars of U23 Vietnam, and the Vietnam national team, even though they have never played in the first division or V-League. Meanwhile, from U19, Xuan Tien and Van Cuong went straight to V-League with Song Lam Nghe An. In fact, these young potentials face countless difficulties in showing themselves. It is very difficult for Xuan Tien and Van Cuong to be called up to U23 Vietnam, let alone the Vietnam national team when they play at a higher level, more or less "immature" as they are now. Remember, in the same generation, Dinh Duy and Phi Hoang of SHB Da Nang were promoted to V-League since 2020 and it took 2-3 seasons to prove their talent and become known as they are now.

On the first day of Song Lam Nghe An having a new sponsor, a leader revealed that besides the first team, there are first and second division teams competing continuously to create resources. Now, Song Lam Nghe An has a third division team about to compete with the ambition of advancing to the second division when the tournament ends at the end of October. That is good news besides many bad news surrounding the first team playing 5 matches without knowing a win in the V-League.

Being able to compete and practice regularly will be the best thing for ambitious young players. Everyone knows that when other training centers are proving their abilities, the products of Song Lam are facing fierce competition and are no longer as "expensive" as before. Taking care of the truly professional youth teams, not being too subjective with easy results in amateur competitions, Song Lam Nghe An can hope to have quality additions to the first team, the U23 team and the Vietnam national team. And only when every weekend, besides watching the results of the first team, fans are also excited about the satisfactory results from the youth teams. When and only when, Song Lam Nghe An in particular and Vietnamese football in general will truly be operating a professional football foundation, will have enough strength to "talk right and wrong" with continental and world football./.