Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) urgently looking for a head coach for U23 Vietnam
One of the top priorities of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) after parting ways with coach Philippe Troussier is to find someone to lead the Vietnam U23 team to the 2024 AFC U23 Championship Finals, which will take place next month in Doha, Qatar.
The draw results put U23 Vietnam in group D with Uzbekistan, Malaysia and Kuwait. This is a group that is suitable for U23 Vietnam as apart from Uzbekistan being superior, the other two teams are on par with U23 Vietnam.
According to the schedule, the U23 Vietnam team will play the opening match in Group D against U23 Kuwait at 10:30 p.m. Vietnam time (6:30 p.m. Qatar time) on April 17 at Saoud Bin Abdulrahman Stadium.
In the remaining two matches, the U23 Vietnam team will compete at Khalifa International Stadium, respectively against U23 Malaysia at 8:00 p.m. Vietnam time (4:00 p.m. Qatar time) on April 20 and against U23 Uzbekistan at 10:30 p.m. Vietnam time (6:30 p.m. Qatar time) on April 23.
This means that the preparation time of U23 Vietnam for the 2024 AFC U23 Championship Finals will not be too abundant, especially in the context that U23 Vietnam is expected to regroup in early April, with the strongest force planned for the competition at the continental U23 arena.
On March 24, the Vietnam U23 team returned home after finishing a short training trip in Tajikistan with the results of 1 win and 1 draw against host U23 Tajikistan.
Because at that time coach Troussier was busy with work in the Vietnam national team, his assistant coach Moulay Lahsen was assigned to lead the Vietnam U23 team.
However, with the VFF terminating Mr. Troussier's contract from the evening of March 26, Mr. Troussier's assistant team will no longer be associated with Vietnamese football at the National Team level, and therefore, U23 Vietnam needs a new coach.
Yesterday (March 27), public opinion and insiders mentioned coach Hoang Anh Tuan as one of the potential candidates for the position of head coach of U23 Vietnam thanks to his achievements in helping U19 Vietnam win a ticket to the U20 World Cup 2017.
However, Mr. Tuan is not necessarily an ideal option, because less than half a year ago, Mr. Tuan failed miserably with the Vietnam Olympic team at the 19th Asiad held in Hangzhou.
Not to mention that in August 2019, Mr. Tuan had to resign as head coach of U18 Vietnam because for 3 consecutive years he could not help U18 Vietnam pass the group stage of the U18 Southeast Asia tournament, in which the most frustrating thing was the 1-2 defeat against U18 Cambodia in the group stage of the U18 Southeast Asia tournament 2019.
The 2024 AFC U23 Championship finals will take place from April 15 to May 3. Accordingly, the top 3 teams will qualify for the 2024 Olympics while the 4th-placed team (losing in the 3rd-place match) will play a play-off with Guinea, the African representative, to compete for the remaining ticket.
