The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) will not rush to dismiss coach Phan Thanh Hung.

Despite the Vietnamese national team facing the risk of being eliminated in the group stage of the 2012 AFF Cup, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) has not yet considered replacing Phan Thanh Hung as head coach.

Coach Phan Thanh Hung and midfielder Tan Tai in the hotel lobby (Photo: HH)

Speaking to the press on the sidelines of Vietnam's training session, VFF Vice President Nguyen Lan Trung affirmed: "If we keep replacing the head coach every time we lose a match, how can we get anything done?"

Yesterday at noon, VFF President Nguyen Trong Hy also had lunch with the coaching staff and players at the Golden Tulip Hotel before flying to the AFC meeting in the afternoon. Mr. Hy shared words of encouragement with the coaching staff and players to prepare well for the final group stage match against Thailand.

The head of the Vietnamese delegation, Ngo Le Bang, was supposed to fly to Malaysia with Mr. Hy for the AFC meeting, but due to the extremely sensitive situation of the Vietnamese national team, Mr. Bang chose to stay with coach Phan Thanh Hung and his team.

Today, the Vietnamese national team was scheduled to train at 4:00 PM on the auxiliary field of the Hua Mark sports complex. However, about an hour before the training session, heavy rain started, so the coaching staff decided to have the players train in the fitness room of the Golden Tulip Sovereign Hotel to ensure the health of the entire team.

The starting players did light training, then took a hot shower and went to their rooms to rest, while the reserve players trained for about an hour before going to rest. The atmosphere of the training session was generally quite subdued, although some players still tried to appear cheerful. Because they had to share the training room with the Philippines, there was almost no laughter or conversation among the players during the training session.

Mr. Bang affirmed that even with just a glimmer of hope, Vietnam would try its best, and the team's goal was to win against Thailand as a gift to apologize to the fans.

Regarding the health of the Vietnamese players, as of this afternoon, midfielder Nguyen Sa is still hospitalized for intravenous fluids due to not having fully recovered from dengue fever. At this point, it can be confirmed that Nguyen Sa will not be able to participate in the match against Thailand tomorrow (November 30, 2012).

According to (vietnamplus.vn)-LT