Stopping at Asian Cup 2024, Vietnamese Football needs to know where it is?

Even before the match, experts had already predicted that this would not be an easy match for Nguyen Quang Hai and his teammates. And the telling statistics reflected Indonesia’s progress as well as the current problems of Vietnamese football. Even with the presence of heroes like Que Ngoc Hai, Nguyen Hoang Duc, Doan Van Hau, Phan Van Duc…, Vietnamese football still could not reach beyond the Southeast Asian region.

The Vietnamese team had more possession (58%) but their ability to control the match was inferior to Indonesia. In terms of shots, Indonesia only had 42% possession, but had 16 shots and 5 of them were on target, including 1 of which helped them score a goal from Asnawi's penalty. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese team only had 11 shots and only 3 of them were on target.

Facing a Vietnamese team with the lowest average height in the tournament, Indonesia showed aannoying gameplaybased on a very strong physical foundation. Especially in the first half, both teams played openly but the Vietnamese team was mostly at a disadvantage in one-on-one situations and was at a disadvantage due to limitations in body shape and physical strength.

The goal conceded on the penalty spot showed that Thanh Binh was showing signs of fatigue and had to hold onto the opponent's shirt in the penalty area, which was the clearest picture of the physical condition of the Vietnam Team. Obviously, the physical foundation of the Vietnam Team is low and cannot withstand the high and dense competition density.

Even in the second half when Indonesia played deep and conceded the game to keep the score, we could not develop the ball coherently and had to rely on long ball situations. Playing long balls against Indonesia really made the Vietnamese strikers disappear.

The only bright spot of the Vietnam team in that match was probably goalkeeper Nguyen Phillip with 4 saves and the ability to withstand the pressure and pressing of the opposing team as well as the ability to pass the ball, coordinate with the central defenders to develop the ball from the back line. Without this goalkeeper, we would have had a much more humiliating match.

After the prosperous period of coach Park Hang-seo, Vietnamese football needs a change to renew itself to reach higher and coach Philippe Trousser is a suitable person for the long-term development strategy. However, on the contrary, Vietnamese football has not been able to meet the requirements and criteria in the playing style that the French strategist needs. That is the quality of human resources, the quality of a country's football.

Modern football puts physical fitness and fitness first, and the level of the National Team and the country's football depends on the quality of the national championship. Remember that the 2023/24 V.League season has only passed 8 rounds, but a series of key players of the Vietnam National Team have been injured and cannot compete.

One of the deeper reasons for the failure of the Vietnam National Team in the 2024 Asian Cup is that Vietnamese football has too few teams, and too few good player training centers, which in turn leaves few good players to select and train. In particular, the work on sports medicine and physical education is an issue that has not received due attention from the Vietnam Football Federation as well as the clubs.

Currently, according to the AFC professional club model, all Vietnamese clubs must have a level 2 fitness coach. However, there is no course in Vietnam for fitness coaches in Vietnam at level 2, nor is there any Vietnamese coach who meets the criteria to register as a fitness coach. Most clubs in Vietnam do not have a fitness coach or have to hire foreign experts.

Stopping at the 2024 Asian Cup, Vietnamese football still has important goals ahead, which are the U23 Asian Finals and the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers. We will certainly fall out of the top 100 of the FIFA rankings. Now, let's not dream of the World Cup dream, Vietnamese football needs to clearly define its position, we still cannot be better than Thailand and Indonesia, in terms of both focusing on youth training, nurturing talents and how to build the National Championship.

If football is like wine - a specialty of coach Philippe Trousser's homeland, he is considered a talented and experienced winemaker. To make the Vietnamese football "wine" more "delicious", it takes time to "brew" so that everything becomes perfect.

Mr. Philippe Trousser has only been with the team for 8 months, not long enough and not in the right way to be able to reap achievements right away. Moreover, people who "grow grapes" and invest in training young talents in Vietnam are still rare, few and even not properly appreciated./.