'Good season' of goalkeepers, Song Lam Nghe An is confident in the goalkeeper position

Song Lam Nghe An has long been considered the cradle of quality goalkeepers. SLNA has goalkeepers who have become legends of Nghe An football teams such as Xuan Thuy, Xuan Vinh and the generation of Vo Van Hanh, Nguyen The Anh, Duong Hong Son, Tran Duc Cuong... Among them, there are 2 faces who have won the Vietnam Golden Ball award.

However, in the past, SLNA still had to hire foreign goalkeepers. For example, in 2009, coach Nguyen Van Thinh used foreign goalkeeper Shihavy Michal from the Czech Republic. SLNA's number 1 goalkeeper in the 2010 V.League season was Goran Brasnic and in the 2011 V.League season was a completely unfamiliar face - Nguyen Huynh Quoc Cuong from Long An.

After his father's generation of players, the most outstanding one is probably Nguyen Manh. The goalkeeper born in 1991 was promoted to SLNA's first team in 2011, but it was not until the 2012 season that he became the main goalkeeper for the Nghe An team. During the 8 years from 2012-2019, Nguyen Manh was always the first choice, and was the main goalkeeper for many years in the national team.

Only in the 2018 season when Nguyen Manh was injured, SLNA had to recruit goalkeeper Phan Dinh Vu Hai. And then after Nguyen Manh joined Viettel in V.League 2020, SLNA sought goalkeeper Nguyen Van Hoang. In the hometown team's jersey, the goalkeeper born in 1995 had 4 seasons and had good performances, being called up to the national team many times.

However, it is likely that in the future, Van Hoang will not continue to stay with SLNA for a long time because of his own plans. On the other hand, young goalkeeper Nguyen Van Viet is playing very well and maturely in SLNA. That makes SLNA's coaching staff completely confident in the goalkeeper position in the following seasons.

Goalkeeper Nguyen Van Viet was born in 2002, is 1m80 tall and after phase I of V.League 2023, Nghe An fans completely believe that this player will be the perfect successor to his senior Tran Nguyen Manh. What is special about Van Viet is not only his reflexes, ability to command the defense, and football thinking, but also his tenacity, ability to play with his feet and initiate attacks.

Those are very good advantages that made him called up to the national team in the most recent training session. Talking about the stable performance of his juniors in SLNA's shirt, goalkeeper Van Hoang shared: "Van Viet deserves to be the main goalkeeper instead of his seniors because of his good performance, at least at the present time". Putting Van Hoang on the bench for the past 6 matches and letting Van Viet be the main goalkeeper was really an important decision by both coach Huy Hoang and coach Nhu Thuat. And it has brought very positive results.

If before joining Team 1, they had only worn the U15 and U16 Vietnam jerseys, and had only competed in youth and second-class tournaments, the path of the young goalkeepers of SLNA's lower ranks was much more fundamental and brighter. Van Viet's juniors were competing in continental and national team tournaments.

First of all, we have to mention goalkeeper Cao Van Binh from Dien Chau. After only 3 years of joining the academy, he and his teammates won the National U13 Championship. In 2020, he also contributed to the team winning third place in the National U15 Championship. With continuous impressive performances, Cao Van Binh was given the opportunity to train in Germany by coach Hoang Anh Tuan and became the main goalkeeper of the Vietnam U19 team at the Southeast Asian U19 Championship.

The goalkeeper born in 2005 also made surprising progress in 2022 and 2023. Just after a training trip in Germany in the U17 Vietnam and U19 Vietnam jerseys, he was called up to the U20 Vietnam team and became the number 1 goalkeeper, then the U23 Vietnam team attended the 32nd SEA Games.

With a height of 1m83, calmness, maturity and tenacity, and being trained by the Vietnam National Team's goalkeeper coaches in the decisive stage to play professionally, Cao Van Binh is facing a great opportunity to be added to the SLNA First Team in the following seasons. In the same generation as Cao Van Binh is goalkeeper Nguyen Huu Hau. In the absence of Van Binh, Huu Hau was the number 2 goalkeeper of SLNA U19, but he and SLNA U19 played impressively and won the runner-up position in the recent National U19 Championship.

The good news about SLNA's goalkeeper training in recent years is that the talents all have ideal physiques, even when they were young players. Typically, goalkeeper Nguyen Bao Ngoc is 1m83 tall. Born in 2007, only 16 years old, Bao Ngoc has an impressive collection of collective achievements: Champion of the National Children's Championship in 2018; Runner-up of the National U13 Championship in 2019; Champion of the National U13 Championship in 2020, Champion of the National U15 Championship in 2022 and Third Prize of the National U17 Championship in 2022.

In 2022, Bao Ngoc also won the double title of "Best Goalkeeper of the Tournament" of U15 and U17 National and then became the number 1 goalkeeper of the Vietnam U17 Team at the recent U17 Asian Cup. With such development conditions, Cao Van Binh, Nguyen Huu Hau or Nguyen Bao Ngoc can be good seeds for the goalkeeping position of SLNA. Not only goalkeeper Nguyen Van Viet in Team 1, this year is only 21 years old.