Youth team failed because of "cold treatment" of champions SLNA & Dong Thap?
(Baonghean.vn) - The U19 Vietnam players are assessed by many experts such as Coach Pham Minh Duc, Coach Dinh Hong Vinh and Le Thuy Hai as having nothing special. That also leaves questions and doubts about personnel issues.
Since U16 Vietnam has been absent from SLNA
Last July, the head coach of the Vietnam U16 team was Vu Hong Viet, who led the Vietnam U15 team to the 2017 Southeast Asian U15 Championship. In the list of 25 players, PVF and Hanoi are the two units that contributed the most players. PVF has 9 players while Hanoi has 5. In addition, Binh Duong also contributed 3 players, the famous youth training center SLNA has 2 players; SHB Da Nang contributed 1 player.
After U19 Vietnam nearly a month ago, it was the turn of U16 Vietnam players to stop right at the group stage of the 2018 Southeast Asian tournament. Coach Vu Hong Viet and his team only ranked 3rd after Myanmar and Indonesia with a rather poor performance.
![]() |
Vietnam U16 team has almost no players from SLNA U15 team - the national U15 champion team. Photo: Goal |
Not long after, at the U16 Asian Cup, U16 Vietnam also stopped at the group stage after losing to India, Iran and drawing with Indonesia. The U16 Vietnam team list also had the core of PVF, Hanoi and "friends". Meanwhile, SLNA only had 1 player called up, Nguyen Van Viet, left over from the U15 Vietnam team.
U15 SLNA just won the championship and the leaders born in 2003 of the Nghe An team such as Dinh Xuan Tien, Nguyen Van Bach... were also forgotten. Even these players were the core players that helped U17 SLNA excellently win the runner-up position before.
So after winning the U15 Southeast Asian Championship, Coach Vu Hong Viet could not add many of the best players from the National U15 Championship, in which U15 SLNA won the championship and U15 Viettel was the runner-up. The question is whether there is any discrimination or inadequacy in the selection of personnel for the youth teams or not? Or is it simply due to the coach's limited ability and vision?
![]() |
U15 SLNA and U19 Dong Thap are teams with many quality players and won the championship this year. Photo: PV |
U19 Vietnam "empty" Dong Thap army
The failure of U19 Vietnam in the 2018 Asian Cup in Indonesia recently left many conflicting opinions about the selection of U19 Vietnam's coaching staff. The biggest question is similar, why are there no members of the reigning U19 National Champion Dong Thap?
The list of U19 Vietnam participating in the 2018 Asian Cup in Indonesia has the core of the runner-up team of U19 National Hanoi. In which 8 players from Hanoi combined with 5 players of HAGL and 4 players of Viettel Club to form the main force. Meanwhile, the champion U19 Dong Thap did not have any names remaining until the final list was finalized. In fact, 4 names of the 4 national U19 champions were summoned by coach Hoang Anh Tuan but all were sent back for various reasons, some were also injured.
![]() |
Vietnam U19 team does not have the best players? Photo: Internet |
The Dong Thap U19 team that won the 2018 National U19 Championship in Hue earlier this year had also won the National U15 and National U17 Championships. This clearly reflects that this is a generation of quality players with a foundation in the football of the coastal region. And clearly, the absence of Dong Thap in the Vietnam U19 team is clearly a paradox, regardless of the reason.
Of course, the U16 and U19 Asian Cup is a big playground, each coach has his own philosophy and perspective. There are no regulations on selection criteria for the national team, but it is clear that the above failures certainly partly come from the screening and selection process.
It is undeniable that training centers such as PVF and Hanoi have been outstanding in recent years. However, we should not ignore traditional and long-standing training centers such as SLNA and Dong Thap. Gathering and utilizing the best from many teams is truly a National Team./.
For the U16 Vietnam team, there are many reasons why the U16 Vietnam team cannot summon the best players. The first reason is the "unique" competition rule of AFC when it stipulates that participating players must be born from September 1, 2002 onwards. That makes the VFF and the U16 Vietnam coaching staff hastily eliminate players born before September 1, 2002 and frantically choose to add players born in 2003. Therefore, the U16 team that went to Malaysia had to eliminate 8 people and add 6 other faces.

Defeating Viettel in the final, U15 SLNA won the championship after 15 years of waiting
(Baonghean.vn) - At Thong Nhat Stadium, the 2018 National U15 Finals will conclude with the final match between Song Lam Nghe An and Viettel. This is a highly anticipated match because both teams were rated the highest before the start of the match and came from famous youth training centers.