From Coach Park's way of using people, looking back at SLNA

The biggest difference between Mr. Park Hang-seo and his predecessors is that the Korean coach prepares many personnel and tactical plans. Combined with his professional experience and accurate judgment of the opponent's situation, he always knows how to use the right players at the right time, and quickly correct mistakes.

View from the Philippines

Hanoi FC's bold use of young players helped U22 Vietnam win at SEA Games 30. Photo: VFF

Everyone knows how important Dinh Trong and Quang Hai are in the U22 Vietnam squad. But clearly, when these two players are absent, he still has a reasonable replacement plan, even though it takes a few matches for him to have a satisfactory defense. Discovering Duc Chien and using Hoang Duc bears Mr. Park's mark, opening up new limits for these two students.

Mr. Park himself has publicly expressed his preference for the 3-4-3 formation many times, but has been successful when playing 3-5-2. When playing with 2 strikers, these 5 midfielders can also be unpredictable, depending on the situation, he will use the 3-3-2-2 or 3-4-1-2 formation. The diversity in playing style and personnel is the strength of the Vietnamese teams under Coach Park.

If in the previous SEA Games, just after the group stage, Vietnam had run out of ideas to attack, revealing all its tactical cards, this time was different. U22 Vietnam was the only team to use all 20 players and play with at least 3 different tactical formations. U22 Vietnam had 2 main strikers who scored 14/24 goals but also had 6 other players who scored. In the 2 matches against U22 Indonesia, we showed 2 different faces, different playing styles, that is what made U22 Vietnam strong and the championship.

…to Vinh Stadium

Meanwhile, last season SLNA often played with a 4-5-1 formation (away) and 4-4-2 (home or when needing a goal). Almost any V.League coach can know the starting lineup and playing style of SLNA by knowing the list of injured and carded players.

It took Ho Tuan Tai 5 seasons to begin to assert himself at the age of 24. Photo: FBCN

The strangest thing is that in football, people only remember the champion team, but SLNA's coaching staff still tries every way to reach the top position, keeping a series of players on the bench. They do not intend to keep goalkeeper Nguyen Manh, but out of the 3 goalkeepers Van Tien (25 years old), Van Hung (27 years old) and Duong Cuong (20 years old), only Van Tien was able to play in only 3 matches.

Young defender Ba Duc only played 1 match and Thanh Lam only stopped at the pre-match warm-up stage the entire season. It took Ho Tuan Tai 5 seasons to start asserting himself at the age of 24, too late compared to players of the same age. With such a way of using people, when Xuan Manh and Van Duc were injured, SLNA's attack seemed to be silent.

In recent years, the Nghe An team has not been in the top group of medalists, far from the relegation zone with a large number of points, meaning that SLNA has a lot of points left at the end of the season. However, the number of players who have been "rooted" on the bench is quite large, including Sy Sam, Sy Nam, Phuc Tinh, The Nhat... But now they are about to become the pillars of the Nghe An team after the departure of a series of players who played in the previous season. There is something lacking in inheritance in SLNA's player usage strategy.

It is hard to blame coach Duc Thang when he went straight from assistant to head coach, not leading the team in youth tournaments so he was "swimming" in a pile of professional work. The professional work depended heavily on the assistants, making SLNA under Duc Thang's leadership not have many highlights, the mindset of defending the majority to not lose throughout many seasons.

With a limited budget, taking over the team in a passive position, the remaining players have been on the bench for many years, the promoted youth have not yet fought in the V.League, Coach Quang Truong will face many difficulties. It is time for Quang Truong to forget the achievements and re-form the traditional style of play of SLNA, boldly using young players./.