Nam Dinh - SLNA: A 'life and death' match at Thien Truong Stadium

The match schedule has inadvertently put the Nghe An team in quite difficult situations, they have to continuously meet teams in the red light group. After only 6 rounds, coach Quang Truong and his team have met 2 matches where the home team "changed generals, waiting for a change of fortune". Recently, it was Thanh Hoa in round 4 and now it is Nam Dinh (round 7), after that they have to travel to Tam Ky stadium, to meet Quang Nam who have just had a series of 3 consecutive losses.

Homeowner has no way back

Thien Truong Stadium spectators are expecting a win. Photo: VPF

Thanh Hoa, Nam Dinh and Quang Nam are not strong teams. But in a "deadly" situation, when playing at home, the mental strength is raised thanks to the cheers of the fans, so the match will become more unpredictable than ever. Nam Dinh has 4 more home matches and they need to improve the situation by taking advantage of the power of the fans at Thien Truong Stadium to help the players get excited.

SLNA has not tasted defeat in 3 away matches this season, while Nam Dinh's home form this season is quite bad. At Thien Truong Stadium, in addition to the victory over rookie Hong Linh Ha Tinh, they lost 2 consecutive matches. Up to now, with a streak of 4 consecutive losses, Nam Dinh is in the worst form in V.League 2020. But this does not guarantee that SLNA will easily get 3 points!

Simply put, the Nghe An team itself just lost 1-3 to Ho Chi Minh City. In this match, if you carefully analyze the tape, you will see that the Nghe An team still has fatal holes in their defense.

The home team Nam Dinh has only had 1 win and 4 losses, forcing coach Van Sy to leave. But honestly speaking, except for the 4-2 loss to the home team Hanoi, the 1-2 losses to Viettel, Hai Phong (home), HAGL 1-0, Thanh Hoa 1-0 (away) were not too inferior in terms of the game. Even in the recent 0-2 loss to the Hai Phong team, the away team only had 3 points.

Rafaelson had 2 goals and 1 assist. Photo VPF

Obviously, compared to SLNA, foreign player Rafaelson and naturalized player Do Merlo played much better. Each player had 2 goals and Do Merlo also had 1 assist, while the 2 foreign players of SLNA have not yet "opened their accounts", even shooting on target is a luxury.

Fans are waiting

The fact that Tuan Tai and Peter Samuel have not been able to "open the barrel" has put a heavy burden on Van Duc's shoulders. If the defense will quickly overcome its weakness after the 3-goal loss at Vinh Stadium, then how to get the offense to score goals is not easy.

Fans are waiting for SLNA to explode again. Photo: Duc Anh

Observing the way coach Quang Truong directs the match further shows that changing SLNA's playing style is not easy.

The new coach of the team from Thanh Nam, Hong Phu, is not a stranger. He was the one who led Nam Dinh to win against Hong Linh Ha Tinh this season when the Van Sy brothers were mourning their mother. So Hong Phu understands that in order for Nam Dinh to escape the spiral, they do not have to focus on attacking fiercely for 90 minutes. Nam Dinh also cannot put all their strength into playing all 7 remaining matches in order to win.

But surely a "must win order" was signed for the match against SLNA when some weaknesses on the right wing as well as the weak points when being attacked straight in the middle of the Nghe An team were exposed.

Meanwhile, after the "convinced" defeat, whether SLNA can recover or not is what fans are waiting for.