Vinh City: Regaining its glory at the 2022 Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament

The sleeping giant

In 23 years historyYouth and Children Football Tournament Nghe An Newspaper Cup, Vinh city youth football is a “giant” on the list of achievements. Specifically: Vinh city youth team has won nearly half of the championship cups of the tournament; Vinh city children team, although inferior to its seniors, has also stepped onto the highest podium of glory of this prestigious youth football tournament 5 times… Any youth or youth football team that wants to usurp the throne must go through 2 Vinh city football teams.

Vinh City Youth Team won the 2014 Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament. Photo: Document

Such a glorious history, however, in recent years, the achievements of the two Vinh city youth football teams at the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament have somewhat declined. The Vinh city Youth Football Team’s most recent championship was in 2015; the Vinh city Youth Football Team’s most recent championship was in 2014. After that last championship, there were years when Vinh city youth football could not even get past the group stage of the Newspaper Cup.

Coach Tran Anh Duc of the Vinh City Football Team explained the reason for this decline in performance: Objectively, it is because the playing fields in the city are increasingly narrowing, children lack playgrounds. Parents are very concerned about their children's studies, so the time children spend playing football is also limited. Besides, in the locality, not all ages have special football talents.

This also leads to other subjective reasons such as the young players in Vinh city are very skilled but physically weaker than other teams. The passion is not as much as before. In addition, the young players in Vinh city are trained in many different football "furnaces", so when entering the tournament, "assembling" the team is also very difficult.

Vinh City Youth Union won the 2015 Newspaper Cup. Photo courtesy

This year 2022, the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament returns after 2 years of delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Amidst the joy of children across the province, it is quite sad that the Vinh City Youth Football Team could not be "established" in time to attend the festival. Mr. Le Nguyen Chung - Director of the Vinh City Center for Culture, Sports and Communications shared about this regret: During the 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vinh City could not organize a school football tournament for teenagers. Therefore, the city could not find the source of factors and athletes to participate in the tournament.

In addition, when the Covid-19 epidemic was under control and daily life returned to normal, Nghe An province in general and Vinh city in particular organized many sports tournaments. In this situation, football coaches who are officials and civil servants of the Vinh City Center for Culture, Sports and Communications had to take on a huge amount of work. The Vinh City Center for Culture, Sports and Communications did not have the human resources to simultaneously take care of training, selection and participation in tournaments for 2 age groups. (In many localities in the province, youth football coaches are not officials and civil servants).

Awakened by innovation

Coach Tran Anh Duc instructs young players. Photo: Thanh Chung

Entering the 2022 tournament, the Vinh City Youth Football Team "shoulders" the expectation of regaining glory for Vinh City's youth football. Coach Tran Anh Duc said: In preparation for the Bao Cup, Vinh City has a gifted football class, established and trained for a year now. Every week, the class practices on Wednesday afternoons and all day on Saturdays, Sundays... After May 20 - when the young players have summer vacation, they will practice every day of the week, until the day of the tournament.

And also before the day of entering the Youth Football Tournament - Nghe An Newspaper Cup about 2 weeks, the coach will select players from the city's gifted football class as the core; plus select players from the gifted football class opened at Song Lam Nghe An Club to participate in the tournament...

The Vinh City Youth Football Team aims to reach the semi-finals of the Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament in 2022. Photo: Thanh Chung

In general, the quality of the Vinh City Youth Football Team participating in the 2022 Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament is quite good; not really outstanding like the previous championships. Talking about the goal of the 2022 season, coach Tran Anh Duc said: “The Nghe An Newspaper Cup Youth Football Tournament is of very high quality. The teams participating in the tournament are all very strong, including candidates for the championship such as Yen Thanh, Quynh Luu, Do Luong, Tan Ky... It must also be said: The characteristics of youth football are very different from those of adults, that is, young players are very good when practicing but when competing, their "hands and feet are numb"... Youth football achievements also depend a lot on luck. The Vinh City Youth Football Team aims to reach the semi-finals of the tournament".

To regain the glory of youth football and overcome the situation where the youth team cannot participate in the tournament like this year, the Vinh City Center for Culture, Sports and Communication has been looking for ways to innovate training and selection methods.

Mr. Le Nguyen Chung - Director of the Center stated: After this year's season, the center will sign contracts with coaches who are outside the center and have good expertise to take charge of the gifted class. The center's staff will only play a management role, avoiding the current situation of "one foot in, one foot out", distraction and insufficient human resources. With a private coach, it is certain that the quality of the youth teams will be improved, thereby improving their achievements. Vinh City youth football will return to its former position.