U17 Song Lam Nghe An: Play more to mature

The recently launched 2023 National U17 Finals are showing hopes for a solid, competitive youth training foundation. Organizing the qualifying round with 2 home/away matches, the finals... will increase the number of matches for young players compared to before. Not to mention many players called up to the National U17 have the opportunity to train domestically and internationally, compete with foreign teams, and in some cases, even be promoted early to U19, U20... which will help them quickly mature and approach their seniors when required.

This can be clearly seen in U17 Song Lam Nghe An - the most traditional team of the U17 group with 7 times National Championship and a 7-0 opening match against Khanh Hoa in this year's final round. In the recent U17 qualifying round, U17 Song Lam Nghe An met strong opponents Hanoi, Thanh Hoa, weak opponents Phu Tho, Hung Yen with 2 matches, a total of 8 matches. Coach Phan Tien Hoai's students played well in the 2 most important matches against Thanh Hoa and Hanoi, had a little difficulty in the return match against Hung Yen, won tickets early 2 matches so they could send reserve players for the final procedural matches.

U17 Song Lam Nghe An shared points with U17 Phu Tho in a procedural match. Photo: Sy Hieu

In the final round, U17 Song Lam Nghe An will meet U17 Khanh Hoa, Dong Thap and Hue, which means they will go through 3 group stage matches, if everything goes well, they will play 3 more matches including quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, a total of 6 matches in the final round. Thus, in this year's national season alone, U17 Song Lam Nghe An players have been trained through 14 official matches, not to mention training matches, friendly matches...

In addition, it is necessary to mention that U17 Song Lam Nghe An has just added 5 U15 players to the squad for the final round. This U15 generation has just won the Gold Cup, meaning they have competed in an entire national tournament, from the qualifying round to the final round. Now if they continue to be put on the field, the number of matches will of course increase, which is very useful for their training and development process. The number of U17 Song Lam Nghe An players named in the U17 Vietnam squad, who will be sent to train in Germany in 2022 such as Van Binh, Long Vu, Nguyen Hoang, Quang Vinh, or recently Van Binh, Nguyen Hoang were promoted to U20 to compete in the ASIAN CUP U20 - 2023, have been trained even more, proving their outstanding maturity.

Through the above qualifying campaign and the first match in the 2023 U17 final round, it can be seen that the pillars Minh Hoi, Trong Tuan, Quoc Hoa, Long Vu... will have a "stage to perform", will be the successors of the seniors Xuan Tien, Van Cuong... who won the most recent Championship in 2020. Remember, only 2 years later, these seniors were called up to the Song Lam Nghe An first team and are young factors that are highly valued in the V-League 2023. It is very possible that the current outstanding factors of U17 Song Lam Nghe An will soon be "planned" for the U19, U21 teams and the Song Lam Nghe An first team and the national youth teams, if they play well in this final round.

Of course, not only the Song Lam Nghe An furnace is maintaining the youth generation well, but the Viettel, PVF furnaces... are also following closely, even accelerating to surpass the youth training achievements of the Vinh football furnace. U17 Song Lam Nghe An wants to regain the throne of the "breaking buffalo horn" generation, it needs to overcome obstacles from U17 PVF, Viettel or Hanoi. In the upcoming group stage matches, Mr. Tien Hoai and his team are not allowed to be subjective against U17 Hue, especially U17 Dong Thap, which has a tradition not inferior to the Song Lam furnace. This means they must be extremely professional, each match is a final, there is no repeating in the qualifying round after having enough points, only playing a draw...

It should also be remembered and hoped that young talents are being given a lot of attention and care, especially when Mr. P. Troussier is assigned to both U23 Vietnam and the Vietnam national team at the same time and currently the coach has called many U20 players to U23 for training, like the honor and responsibility of seniors Van Binh, Nguyen Hoang, Xuan Tien recently.

There will come a time when the coach will look to the U17, U19... generation and everyone will have the opportunity to rise up and contribute. Of course, to turn the opportunity into reality, first of all, they need to play more and they themselves must contribute and show more talent. The U17 Song Lam Nghe An players are actually playing and showing themselves, but compared to the requirements, it cannot be said to be enough, because at least compared to the young generations of Hanoi FC, for example, they have never competed or trained abroad...