Pham Bui Minh - the mysterious factor in SLNA's coaching staff

Pham Bui Minh was born in 1978, a player who grew up in the SLNA training center. Like his peer Nguyen Thanh Cong, Bui Minh's football career at SLNA was not really outstanding.

Pham Bui Minh when he was still the head coach of U19 SLNA. Photo courtesy of PV

After being promoted to the SLNA first team, Bui Minh did not get a place in the SLNA main squad so he quickly chose his own path - going to school to soon become a coach. At one point, people even knew Bui Minh as a referee.

On the coaching bench, Bui Minh soon made his mark when he was trusted by head coach Nguyen Huu Thang and chosen as assistant coach in SLNA's 2011 National Championship achievements.

When coach Huu Thang left, Mr. Minh was assigned the task of training young players, and was part of the coaching staff of the U teams at SLNA.

In 2020, Coach Bui Minh was invited by Hai Phong to be the assistant coach to Coach Pham Anh Tuan. After that, he was appointed head coach of U19 SLNA...

In the recent training session of SLNA team 1, assistant coach Pham Bui Minh always created an exciting atmosphere for the players to practice. Photo: Duc Anh

Looking back, SLNA's confidence in choosing Bui Minh to coach the first team has a specific and clear basis.

Comparisons are always lame, but sometimes they can create a relative perspective to visualize the story. For example, Bui Minh and Thanh Cong trained together, played together in youth competitions, then moved up to the first team and assumed similar achievements; when they reached adulthood, were educated, studied, took exams, got degrees, and returned to work with different roles, they still went hand in hand.

However, now Thanh Cong is the head coach of many V. League teams, has contributed to "firefighting" for the Central teams from Quang Nam to Thanh Hoa, then back to Hong Linh Ha Tinh... the fact that Bui Minh is still "slowly" working as an assistant for the SLNA first team is not a "lightning speed" with any group interests, but must be due to legitimate professional and technical reasons, carried out "in accordance with the procedure"!

Pursuing a football "career", training, and growing up from number 6 Dao Tan, everyone has always kept in mind one thing: no matter where they become a king or a general, their biggest wish is still to be able to play for the SLNA first team, to be/will be assigned some important responsibility in the SLNA first team coaching staff, to make their neighbors proud, and to make their parents' efforts to take them there day after day make them happy.

So the fact that people who have been with SLNA like Bui Minh were assigned the role of assistant head coach of the first team (while there are many people with enough qualifications, practical experience, and achievements) is also a matter of comparing chopsticks to choose a flagpole and of course, there is the individual effort of each person, the fate at each time...

The success of coaches Thanh Vinh or Huu Thang in the first team and the youth teams of coaches Nguyen Van Thinh, Dinh Van Dung, Le Ky Phuong... are worth for the current "four" first team coaches to refer to and learn from, in which coach Bui Minh has to learn the most, work the most when he did not have the "starting point" of being a good player like Huy Hoang, Nhu Thuat or Van Quyen.

In this era of deep integration, surely Bui Minh and many football lovers know that many world-class and domestic coaches such as Mourinho, Thomat Tuchel... were very mediocre when they were playing football, but now everyone has to take their hats off to them. In Vietnam, coach Chu Dinh Nghiem was so excellent but did not have any impressive achievements when he was a player.

A professional at SLNA commented that, besides his professional ability, Bui Minh's personality is quite calm, young players listen to and trust him, meaning "protecting the army". That is a necessary quality, even the most necessary in the current context of SLNA...