Behind the breathtaking victories of Coach Park Hang-seo with Vietnamese football (part 3)

Coach Park Hang-seo reveals many surprises about Vietnamese football

(Baonghean.vn) - In a book recounting Coach Park Hang-seo's sharing about his working process in Vietnam, the Korean coach revealed that the first thing he did when taking over the Vietnamese team was to change the players' eating habits.

Extremely intense situational training

At the end of the 2018 AFC U23 Championship, the confidence of Vietnamese players increased dramatically. First of all, the players no longer glanced sideways at Coach Park Hang-seo's chair. Without confidence, even if they made a very small mistake or even if they did not make a mistake, they would think they were at fault and become discouraged.

In the victory over Qatar, the action of Vu Van Thanh spreading his arms to celebrate the victory was an impressive image showing the confidence of the Vietnamese players. And the image of coach Park Hang-seo sitting on the chair was also very relaxed.

Coach Park confided: “I learned a big thing from Coach Hiddink since 2002, which is related to the role of the players. Players in the match must clearly know what their role is, if the attacking players must complete their tasks accurately, midfielders and defenders, if they do not know what their role is, will not be able to develop their abilities. Helping players do this is physical strength and spirit.”

During his time as assistant to coach G. Hiddink, coach Park has accumulated a lot of valuable experience. Photo: KFA

One of the examples that Coach Park Hang-seo gave about the mental factor is training in extremely tense situations: “When I was a player, if my team was losing, the coach often instructed, “Hey, move faster.” But the players didn’t know how to move fast, how to move. It was very general.

In 2002, Coach Hiddink gave the answer to the Korean team. He divided us into two teams and let us practice as if we were playing a real game. Suddenly, he stopped the match and asked the players of both teams. There are only 10 minutes left, what strategy will you use? Because we were losing, the urgency made us have many opinions.

This idea was given to the winning team and he said: “I will change this strategy for the other team, how will the players respond? How?”. In that way, he heard the opinions of both sides and continued the game. That means you guys play as you said. So after about 2, 3 minutes, he stopped the game again.

Coach Park Hang-seo always has many options for the team. Photo: TK

Then he asked the two teams for their opinions: “How do you plan to change your strategy in the remaining time? What are the advantages as you think and what are the disadvantages?” Then he listened to the opinions of the two teams again and gave his conclusion.

And Coach Park Hang-seo has applied this training method in Vietnam. He almost followed it all. In Vietnam, Coach Park divided it into smaller parts. When winning 1-0 and one person was sent off, there were only 10 minutes left, losing 0-2 and there were still 5 minutes left in the round of 16, if he lost, he would be eliminated.

Coach Park gives the players very specific situations like that and asks, if it were you, how would you play in those situations. And asks the players to perform as he imagines and then trains the players as if they were playing for real. Then, analyzes for the players every little thing that can be used when on the field, bringing up the team's and individual's problems.

Coach Park Hang-seo. Photo: AFC

Coach Park Hang-seo's purpose in training with this method is to improve the players' ability to control the game as they wish, to absorb tactics according to the situation and flow of the match.

At the end of the 90-minute training session, Coach Park gives the players about 30 more minutes. In other words, after the end of the official match time, there is also extra time. It is also to supplement the players' physical strength. Coach Park sets out very specific situations and gives the players specific situations, at the same time letting them know clearly what their roles are, there is no other way.

Visible results from special training

Coach Park recalled: “In the match between Korea and Italy in the round of 16 of the 2002 World Cup, in the 18th minute of the first half, we were down by 1 goal but we kept letting time pass. At that time, all the players who came on were attackers. In the 63rd minute, we took off Kim Tae-young and brought on attacker Hwang Son-hong. In the 68th minute, we brought on winger Lee Chun-soo to replace defensive midfielder Kim Nam-il.

In the 83rd minute, we took off Hong Myeong-bo, the captain, and replaced him with Cha Du-ri. Then we were left with only a true defender, Choi Gin-cheul. If we lost, we would be eliminated, so we took such extreme risks. In the 88th minute, we scored an equalizer, and with another goal in extra time, we were able to make a great success of this gamble.

Vietnam U23 team dramatically defeated Iraq at the AFC U23 Championship. Photo: VNE

Of course, during that time, the blood in our bodies was almost dry. In fact, we had predicted such a situation and had trained in advance. If we prepare carefully, we will not be shaken mentally and physically. With Vietnam, at the AFC U23 Championship, in the quarter-finals against Iraq U23 and the semi-finals against Qatar, we achieved very precise results from this training method."

In the match against Qatar, in the 87th minute, U23 Vietnam conceded a goal, but in the end, coach Park Hang-seo and his team equalized thanks to Quang Hai's goal and everything was like a miracle to advance to extra time.

Coach Park recalled: “Later, when I asked the players, they said that simulating extremely tense situations for practice had brought great results. From the start of the match until the final whistle, they knew clearly what their role was and how to do it, so they were not affected at all. They just needed to do it exactly as in practice. And feel the exact situation when playing for real and use it exactly as in practice.”

The victory over Qatar at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship was impressive. Photo: AFC

The head coach of the Vietnam national team further analyzed: “In football, there are many situations that happen so we need to prepare in advance. When the match is good or not as good as calculated, then at the time when the entire team is physically weak, when the opponent changes tactics, we have to consider all those situations to come up with a plan.

A strong team is one that has prepared many backup plans before playing against the opponent. If we observe that the opponent changes tactics during the match, we will also change tactics. Of course, when the opponent changes tactics but our playing style still wins, we will continue to follow the same path."

When the game is not going well or the players’ organization is loose, the assistant team will predict that this time the strategy is stuck on many sides. At that time, the problem will definitely arise right in the first few minutes of the match. When watching this match and noticing this, Coach Park and his assistants will give a signal. Coach Park and his assistants exchange feelings about the change of the match.

Thanh Chung's header equalized 1-1 for U22 Vietnam against Indonesia. Photo: Hai Hoang

Coach Park shared: “Sometimes during the match, when to push the attack, when to focus on defense, we will have a strategic meeting in a moment. If the assistant team agrees with me, we will decide which response method we have prepared and apply it immediately. In case we need to change the player's position, we will request a change of position for a specific player.”

Coach Park Hang-seo also revealed that he has prepared a specific strategy and plan B for the AFF Cup 2018: “That is the 4-attack strategy. If we arrange 4 players in defensive positions, there will be more players near the goal, so the ball possession rate will be higher. The remaining players are all in attacking positions.

With the centre-backs, instead of reducing their defensive role and asking them to attack more, I added another defender. This is not an emergency strategy but a separation strategy, which is a strategy to implement in case we are losing with only about 30 minutes left in the match.

Tien Linh celebrates the goal that narrowed the score to 1-2 in the Thailand match. Photo: Hai Hoang

In the end, Coach Park Hang-seo could not use this strategy at the AFF Cup 2018, because the Vietnamese team did not need to use it. Because in the AFF Cup semi-finals, Coach Park and his team did not fall behind once.

However, in our opinion, this strategy was applied perfectly at the recent SEA Games 30. Specifically, the dramatic and thrilling victories until the last minute against U22 Singapore, Indonesia, and the 2-2 draw against Thailand to win tickets to the semi-finals and finals.

The plan that coach Park Hang-seo prepared was not only about personnel, people but also how to take advantage of set pieces, corner kicks, headers and long-range shots were performed by players like Van Hau, Thanh Chung, Duc Chinh, Hoang Duc as if they had practiced in advance.

To be continued...

Next: Mental strength and management style of coach Park Hang-seo (part 4)

Coach Park Hang-seo and the secret to success for Vietnamese football (part 2)

(Baonghean.vn) - After solving the problems of cultural conflicts and unreasonable eating habits of Vietnamese players, Coach Park Hang-seo began to choose the 3-4-3 tactic to apply to the Vietnam U23 team and the national team. Those are the next main contents in the book about Coach Park Hang-seo.