When V-League 1 is behind Thai League 2 and the story of Vietnamese football

However, in the Southeast Asian region, V-League is still above the national championships of Indonesia and Malaysia… That is, Vietnamese football has not developed as expected, but clearly, we are not the ones who are lagging behind, inferior in the general level of the region and continent.

The fact that the Thais occupy the top two spots in the region is not surprising, because the club teams of these tournaments often play well in regional and continental tournaments, followed by the achievements of the Thai national team for a long time. And right after leaving the Asian Cup 2023 quickly from the group stage, Vietnamese football received the above rankings, which is the "alarm bell" at the right time and place to look back at the current situation of the V-League, of the national teams, the top teams from the quality of competition, facilities, ambitions to reach new heights, youth training and many other outstanding issues.

Obviously, in this urgent story, those responsible for football, coaches and players, and the majority of fans must see this as a "perfect opportunity" to promote existing results, overcome the limitations and negatives to the maximum to improve the quality of V-League, and create a foundation for sustainable development of football.

First of all, let's start with fundamental, scientific training of children based on the general development of stature, physical and mental endurance of Vietnamese people. When entering the continental playground or when facing a team that is mainly naturalized players, "Dutch-ized" style like Indonesia at present, not only Vietnam but also Thailand will encounter difficulties and lose the match. It is very necessary for the whole society to join hands so that from the time the child is in the womb, until birth, the process of raising, training, growing up... is a closed, comprehensive process, to produce people with good physique, strong physical strength, trained in both expertise and courage, will in a large area and high pressure.

Vietnamese football has done, and done well, but there is still too little and unsustainable work in youth training. Recently, many people know about the Hoang Anh Gia Lai U19 generation, the U20 generation under coach Hoang Anh Tuan, the PVF U19 generation under coach Troussier or the potential youth generations from Hanoi FC, Song Lam Nghe An, Viettel...

The difficult economy also does not allow for abundant investment in youth football, so that places with traditions such as Hoang Anh Gia Lai or Song Lam Nghe An fall into a state of "forced ripening" and "exhaustion of potential", a very regrettable situation of "selling green rice"... As a result, the quality of V-League is not improved as required, revealing many bad remnants when going to the region and continent as seen at the recent Asian Cup.

Therefore, the domestic youth tournaments, international friendly tournaments in China and Japan recently of the U teams from Hanoi FC, Song Lam Nghe An…has brought many useful things to football people and each young player. Failure when playing on big fields is inevitable from U teams to clubs and national teams. But when experiencing failure, especially when facing big football teams, the lessons are always specific, in-depth and memorable, and last longer.

Traditional training centers should not be satisfied with their achievements, easy championships, and matches with different results compared to other localities. The problem is when they step out into the region and continent, what will the results be, and where will they be ranked after each tournament? At present, V-League 1 is still behind Thai League 2, so clearly, we have a lot of work to do in the present and the future.

It is not by chance that the coaches require the players to meet the requirement of running 10-12 km in each match, the young players must play at least 50-60 official matches each year... to escape the sad situation where many players only play well for 65-70 minutes of each 90-minute match today. Without regular training, without playing with a good physical foundation and endurance, it is very difficult to "dream" of something on the continental stage.

UmbrellaAsian Cup 2023Recently, Korea and Japan were considered to have played unsuccessfully, so we still have a lot to learn and follow. For example, Korea went through a nerve-wracking match in the previous round of 16, had 2 days less rest than their opponents, but in the quarter-final match, they still "ran well", still had enough strength to defeat their opponents Australia. Or Japanese player Mianmino just played the quarter-final match against Iran, then 24 hours later returned to France to play for Monaco, to the surprise of the whole world. Those are the goals among many goals that Vietnamese football must learn, must do well to really reach the top, starting from this spring, so that at least V-League 1 does not have to be ranked behind Thai-League 2, for example./.