Cong Phuong tastes defeat for the first time in V.League

Not attacking high, not playing fast but proactively retreating deep to play defensive counter-attacks, giving the game to HA.GL, DT.Long An deservedly won 2-1 against the team from the mountain town in the match of round 2 of Toyota V-League 2015.

A match in which the technical, small-sided play of HA.GL, which was essentially an expanded U19 team, was almost ruined. Let's take a look at the highlights of the battle on Long An field.

DT.Long An defeated HA.GL thanks to rich experience

Playing with a large defense, Long An National Team broke HA.GL's playing style.

Completely different from the rookie Sanna Khanh Hoa BVN in the opening round of Toyota V-League, DT.Long An did not play high to play an open game with HA.GL, nor did they play fast, but instead played slowly, retreated deep to play a large defense and looked for opportunities from quick counter-attacks, set pieces and high balls.

They were successful with this approach to the match. HA.GL, which is essentially an expanded U19 team, still played an open attack as they usually do, but U19 stars like Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong, Hong Duy, Van Son... could hardly coordinate with each other near the home team's penalty area, nor could they make individual breakthroughs because they encountered a defensive system that was set up quite low and had a large number of players, always supporting each other quite well, of the Long An team.

The visitors had a comfortable possession of the ball in midfield, but whenever a HA.GL player held the ball near the Long An DT penalty area, there were usually 2-3 home players immediately surrounding and pressing. The number of Long An DT players participating in defense was especially large when HA.GL attacked in the middle. Coach Guillaume Graechen's students had a lot of difficulty finding space to dribble or pass into the penalty area for teammates, especially in the first half.

Goalkeeper Quoc Cuong played excellently despite making a mistake at the end of the match.

Goalkeeper No. 25 was one of the heroes of Long An in this match when he almost denied all the best efforts of the away team. Quoc Cuong excellently blocked 6 dangerous shots of the opponent.

Those were two close-range shots by Darko Lukanovic, a shot from Hoang Thien in a one-on-one situation and three long-range shots by Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong and Hong Duy. Due to many difficulties in approaching the Long An team's goal, HA.GL was forced to seek luck with long-range shots many times, but although Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong and Hong Duy finished well, Quoc Cuong was even better as he blocked all of them.

Goalkeeper No. 25 only made one mistake, causing DT.LA to concede a goal in the 83rd minute. Lukanovic's shot outside the box was soft and right at Quoc Cuong's position, but he was complacent, fumbled the ball and let it bounce into the net. However, Quoc Cuong still deserves praise for his performance throughout the match.

Cong Phuong pales, Diabate overshadows Lukanovic

In contrast to the opening match, against DT.Long An, Cong Phuong had almost no space to show off his dribbling and ball-handling skills. Number 44 of HA.GL did not make any shots throughout the match and did not have any notable breakthroughs.

Cong Phuong was always closely followed by the home team, blocking all the space, forcing him to even play lower in the second half, but it was still ineffective. Cong Phuong lost the ball many times due to the experienced, close-quarters play of the home team. The only shining moment of number 44 was when he passed the ball to Hoang Thien, who shot against the goal post of the Long An team in the first half.

While Cong Phuong did not play well, foreign striker Lukanovic also appeared quite lackluster. His goal was mainly due to luck when Quoc Cuong made a mistake. Lukanovic basically could not coordinate with the U19 stars of HA.GL.

On the contrary, foreign player Diabate played extremely energetically and stood out for the home team. He had great stamina, moved tirelessly and threatened HA.GL's goal many times with his dribbling and finishing. If he had played better as a team or had finished more accurately, the striker of DT.Long An would have had his own goal in this match.

HA.GL poor defense

This was a match where all positions in HA.GL's defense made mistakes. Chi Cong's opening goal was the fault of both Hong Duy and Van Long. Hong Duy let Rafael Dos Santos Lima comfortably hang the ball low from the left wing (of HA.GL) for Chi Cong to run in and head the ball dangerously to score for Long An.

In the first few minutes, Dong Trieu was not good at playing as a center back so he was replaced by Van Long. But when it was his turn, the number 4 center back of HA.GL could not keep up with Chi Cong so the center back of DT.Long An ran in front of him and headed the ball to score.

Not to mention the gap between Duc Luong and Hong Duy in the left position as well as Van Son and Van Long in the right position was exploited many times by the home team to create dangerous penetrations into the penalty area by Diabate or Tai Em.

The goal that raised the score to 2-0 for Long An by Thanh Hai was once again Van Long's fault when he could not block Long An's number 14 in a face-off.

In addition to the two goals conceded, HA.GL's goal was shaken at least three other times and only luck helped them escape defeat from set pieces when the ball hit the crossbar and bounced off the post from Chi Cong's header, Quang Thanh's free kick and Rafael Dos Santos Lima's free kick that Diabate failed to finish from close range.

According to TTVH