National football team coach: "Domestic" or "foreign"?

In just 3 months, the Vietnamese team will compete in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers; the U23 team will play in the 2012 London Olympics preliminary round, and prepare for the 2011 SEA Games. Mr. Calisto's sudden resignation has caused the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) to frantically search for a replacement.

According to the plan, this afternoon (March 7), the VFF President will work with the National Coaching Council and the Professional Council to discuss the choice of a domestic or foreign coach for the national team. However, before that, answering the press, VFF officials were inclined towards the option of choosing a foreign coach. These officials said that it is still necessary to choose a foreign coach, with the reason that Vietnamese players' awareness is not high, requiring the head coach to be a foreigner to create prestige to lead... Experts, the press and fans think that this is a revolutionary opportunity for VFF, why do we have to use foreign coaches, while domestic coaches are more than capable?!

Currently, domestic coaches such as Le Thuy Hai, Nguyen Thanh Vinh, Mai Duc Chung, Le Huynh Duc, Phan Thanh Hung... have been assistants to foreign coaches in the national team and have successfully "stood in" many times. Coach Mai Duc Chung even has a Merdeka championship title. Besides, these domestic coaches have been and are asserting themselves with successes with clubs in the V.league. Therefore, this is the time to use domestic coaches. The problem is that if assigned, full authority should be given to make it easy for domestic coaches to do their jobs, the role and salary of foreign coaches should be the same as that of domestic coaches.

Duc Chuyen