Song Lam Nghe An foreign players: Blunt or sharp?

Song Lam Nghe An is known for its "lucky hand" in signing contracts with foreign players. In difficult conditions, they still find and select "rough diamonds" to polish through practice, so that they can contribute to the overall achievements of the team and gradually improve their own level.

Rookie Mario Arques (right). Photo courtesy of Duc Anh

This is both a good thing and also brings many difficulties for Song Lam Nghe An when foreign players only sign a contract for one season (Olaha's case is special, extremely valuable) and then find a new team with a higher salary and bonus. Right in this V-League season, many foreign players who used to play for Song Lam Nghe An are now "opponents" such as Fagan, Lynch, Gustavo... Because of poverty, Song Lam Nghe An often suffers a talent drain, in some aspects not only domestic but also foreign players as mentioned above.

Since having a new, more abundant sponsor, Song Lam Nghe An has had the opportunity to find the domestic players they liked who had left, and at the same time "acquire" better foreign players than before. Olaha is a special case who had been with the Vinh team for 3 consecutive seasons, left for Israel to seek a future but was unsuccessful and was welcomed back by the team with open arms, continuing to be an irreplaceable player in the team's attack. The remaining foreign players such as Oseni and Mario also made important contributions to the team's high ranking in the first leg, which should be duly recognized.

However, looking back at the entire journey of the first leg, compared to the team's domestic players, compared to the top foreign players of V-League and even the excellent domestic players of other teams, the statistics of Song Lam Nghe An's foreign players are still modest, if not somewhat disappointing and alarming.

In the statistics of the top 13 scorers of the first leg of V-League 1-2022, there is no name from Song Lam Nghe An, both foreign and domestic players. The best foreign player, leading the top scorer position, is Rimario (Hai Phong), who has almost "fired" regularly with 12 goals after 13 matches, in which this player had to be suspended for 1 match due to a penalty card. Hai Phong has always been at the top of the table this season thanks to Rimario's first contribution, along with the versatile and quick-scoring foreign player Mpande (4 goals), not to mention the silent contribution of midfielder Moses.

This list includes the “old players” that Song Lam Nghe An used to criticize, like Lynch (currently playing for Topenland Binh Dinh) with 5 goals, Gustavo (Saigon FC) also has 4 goals. Most noteworthy is a striker who once dominated the V-League with more than 100 goals like Do Melo (Saigon FC) in a struggling team, thought to be out of date, but has scored 5 times, not to mention Hoang Vu Samson who has also scored consecutively recently…

Remember, Olaha was present for most of the first leg (except for 2 matches suspended due to red cards) but seemed very dull when he only scored 2 goals, equal to Oseni's achievement of 2 goals even though this player came later. This achievement is only equal to 2 matches participating in V-League of foreign striker Lucao that Hanoi FC recently added. The remaining foreign player of Song Lam Nghe An, Ojong Mark, just played to integrate but suffered a long-term injury, Mario, although having 2 assists in 3 matches, did not show great potential if going long-term...

The domestic players of Song Lam Nghe An are not as impressive as other teams. Tien Linh did not play many matches due to injury but scored 4 goals along with a series of good players Cong Phuong, Van Toan, Van Nam, defender Tan Tai... Van Duc and Xuan Manh are indispensable pillars of the team, but the 2 goals in the first leg is too little when their teammates in the Vietnam National Team are in much better form.

To see, if foreign players do not continuously score but have to wait for domestic players to shine, that is very difficult to accept for any team. When foreign players are arranged to play highest, closest to the goal, creating direct pressure on the opponent's defense but do not complete the task, do not have the power to make the opponent panic, make mistakes, then the set goal is considered not achieved. Maybe with the reason "you get what you pay for", the reason to wear down the opponent, create opportunities for others... but with what Olaha, Oseni or Mario have shown, everyone can see that the quality of foreign players of Song Lam Nghe An needs to be improved, raised a lot in the coming time./.