Negative doubt or crisis of faith?

The confrontation in football in the form of the first leg and the second leg is perhaps one of the most attractive points of the King's sport. It has many meanings, from revenge to the change of situation after each goal is scored, from the surprise to the measure of each team's long-term playing ability. And the most attractive point is the comeback of those who thought they were 'about to lose' to the stumble of those who thought they had the upper hand.

All of those attractions converged in the second leg match between the Vietnamese team and the Malaysian team, although the technical quality of that match was not attractive at all.

The first leg and the second leg, it allows us to have a broader picture of the so-called input and output. The first leg can be an input test and the second leg is the fierce exit gate.

Leading 2-1 after the first leg was a big advantage but the Vietnamese team failed to secure the result.

The Vietnamese team had a great entrance exam, as if a high school graduate became the valedictorian of a university entrance exam.

But then our team did not have the best graduation results, or more accurately, could not graduate from university to hold a degree and enter the world. The valedictorian of the first year, ecstatic with the false reputation of a moment of admission, abandoned the most important thing: 'Equipped with enough courage and knowledge to graduate from university with honors'.

And of course, just like families who have high expectations for their valedictorian child and then change their attitude to the opposite extreme when he or she fails to graduate from university and enter the real world, the common attitude of many of us towards the team is 'suspecting they fixed the match'.

I don't want to use the word negative, but frankly use the word match-fixing, as many of us said after watching that match. Negativity is very general. Sometimes, bad mentality, playing sluggishly below one's ability is also negative. And negativity is not a crime defined in the criminal code. Match-fixing is a crime in the law under the name of 'gambling and organizing gambling'. Therefore, using the word negative sometimes becomes an invisible shackle to label players who, just recently, we honored them as heroes.

To be frank, I do not believe that any members of the Vietnamese team sold the match in the second leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2014 semi-final. As I have commented many times on television, “If you doubt, don’t watch. If you watch, don’t doubt.” However, I have no right to prevent others from doubting because sometimes, doubt is also one of the factors that make up criticism. And a democratic society needs multi-dimensional criticism.

And I do not agree with anyone who immediately judges that they have sold matches. That is a malicious degradation of human dignity. Without the judgment of the investigating agency or the court, the person is still a citizen with all rights and obligations, not a criminal.

But surely, there will be readers who will challenge my point of view with the argument that "if there was no match-fixing, why would it be so easy to lose by 4 goals?".

Yes, it is true that the Vietnamese team conceded 4 goals too easily. But have we ever thought carefully about the quality of the Vietnamese team's defense in this AFF Cup?

In fact, the defense is the biggest concern of the Vietnamese team at present. And the two victories against the Philippines and Malaysia (first leg) have made us forget how weak the Vietnamese team's defense is. According to statistics from the beginning of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2014 until now, the Vietnamese team has only once not conceded a goal (in the match against Laos). Against strong opponents, from Indonesia to the Philippines and Malaysia, we have lost and even conceded early goals.

Mr. Miura once confided that “when he first came to Vietnam and watched the V-League, he was a bit worried because he didn’t know how to build a team when he couldn’t find a good striker. But when he gathered the national team, he was even more panicked when he realized that good defenders were even rarer.”

The defense made consecutive mistakes but it cannot be confirmed that it was match-fixing. Photo: VSI

Everyone makes mistakes, even stupid ones, but you can't be too quick to label a stupid mistake as a crime. Especially in football, a game where the psychology on the field can change quickly depending on the situation between you and your opponent. Many times, after a mistake occurs, people lose focus, play more and more confused, play more and more frantic.

And the mistakes of the Vietnamese team's defense at My Dinh are even more likely to become a series of mistakes when the spectators who come to the stadium have returned to the mentality of 'supporting prosperity, not decline'. They are no longer enthusiastic supporters but have become ordinary passersby, coming when happy, leaving when bored. Can the Vietnamese team play well in the output survey, in such a rapidly changing environment?

Every society has its own football. A society where entrance exams are still highly valued, ignoring the output, with university degrees, masters, and doctorates being bought and sold easily, can hardly have a healthy culture and sports.

All positive energy has been poured into the input, poured to the point of being exhausted. Then at the output, the game immediately shows the true face of Vietnamese society today. That is the face of people who "Do not believe in anything".

In fact, losing in the semi-finals of a regional tournament is nothing like a tragedy or a crisis. But it clearly shows that in Vietnam, there is a strong crisis of trust. And what is the solution to such a small wound? It is to find out clearly who is responsible and what the person who bears that responsibility needs to do to improve the situation, to look further and wider instead of just looking around this Southeast Asian region.

The responsibility does not lie with the security forces, who were called in to investigate a vague suspicion.

The first responsibility lies with the players. They are not playing well, they have to improve if they want to stay with the national team.

According to TTVH