Coach Le Thuy Hai: "Huge" salary and pressure

(Baonghean.vn) Right in the first days of the Year of the Dragon, when other football teams were on Tet holiday, V.Hai Phong stirred up the Vietnamese football scene with a contract considered "unprecedented for a domestic coach" to invite coach Le Thuy Hai to lead the port city team.

With a signing bonus of about 1 billion VND/season, the coach known as the "special one" of Vietnamese football also receives a monthly salary of over 100 million VND and other large bonuses for each victory. Accordingly, if he leads V.Hai Phong to the top 3, adding up all the bonuses, the person who once declared himself the best among domestic coaches will pocket about 5 billion VND/season! This is truly a dream income for domestic coaches today.

Receiving a "huge" salary, coach Le Thuy Hai and striker Dinh Tung meet again in the V.Hai Phong shirt

To get that "huge" salary, Coach Le Thuy Hai had to endure a lot of pressure at Lach Tray Stadium when V. Hai Phong was famous for being an ambitious team but also a "grinder" of coaches as they were ready to "fire generals" after just a few unconvincing matches.

In the 2009 season, former coach of the Vietnamese national team, Alfred Riedl, was invited by V. Hai Phong and was fired after only 3 matches. The most bitter person who declared that he would not return to Lach Tray Stadium was coach Vuong Tien Dung, when in recent seasons when the results were poor, he was solemnly invited back by V. Hai Phong, and when he won the third prize, then the second prize, he was also pushed away and then invited back. Right in the 2012 season, after only 2 rounds (1 draw, 1 loss), the leadership of V. Hai Phong team said that whether they won or lost, after the 3rd round, they would change the coach. And the result was that coach Nguyen Dinh Hung had to proactively write a resignation letter.

This year, V.Hai Phong did not hide its ambition when it bought the foreign players who helped SLNA win the 2011 V.League championship: Fagan, Ansha and Kavin. Other domestic players such as striker Dinh Tung (Thanh Hoa), center back Van Ngan (Dong Thap), Hoang Duc (Khanh Hoa), Thanh Phuc (Hoa Phat) all joined the port city team with high salaries and signing bonuses.

Coach Le Thuy Hai's mission when returning to Lach Tray is to make the leaders of V.Hai Phong see that the stars they bring in are worth the money, not just redundant people, and that V.Hai Phong must be a force in the Super League. If he can do that, the coach who once led Binh Duong to win the V.Leaugue for two consecutive seasons and is famous for his frank, even shocking statements in the Vietnamese football community, can expect to receive the full "huge" income package. Otherwise, Mr. Hai will have to leave bitterly like other famous coaches who have worked here.

Duc Dung