But it also has a price!

While struggling to find a way to deal with public opinion about the situation of "asking - giving", "borrowing - paying" points in domestic football tournaments, VFF officials suddenly breathed a sigh of relief when they received good news "from the sky": For the first time, the Japan Football Association (JFA) officially sent an invitation to the Vietnamese team to play a friendly match with the Japanese team on October 7. A VFF official excitedly said: "Being invited to play by the JFA is a good sign, showing that Vietnamese football is increasingly valuable."

In fact, the fact that Japan chose Vietnam as their "blue team" to prepare for the third qualifying round of the 2014 World Cup is quite strange. Because in the third qualifying round - the 2014 World Cup, Japan was not in the same group with the Southeast Asian representatives (Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia); countries with similar football levels to Vietnam. Meanwhile, on August 10, Japan easily defeated South Korea (an opponent with a level far above the Vietnamese team) with a score of 3-0 in a friendly match. Is it possible that the Japanese team wants to continue looking for a resounding victory to encourage the players' spirit before entering the upcoming decisive matches?!

We know that this is an opportunity for Vietnamese players to compete with stars like Kagawa, K.Honda, Okazaki, Usami... However, preparing the force to become a worthy "blue team" without losing the reputation of Vietnamese football is not easy. Because the period after August is the time for Vietnamese players to relax after a season. If they want to maintain the force, VFF must spend money to concentrate on training troops to... serve the friendly match with Japan.

Remember that, to invite a prestigious team to a friendly match, the host team always has to pay a certain price for the visiting team to "go out". Because they have not paid enough, many teams have not come to Vietnam to compete even though the host has invited them "to the point of breaking chopsticks and breaking bowls". As for the Vietnamese team, being invited by other national teams is only a rare case, so as soon as JFA raises the issue, VFF hastily nods unconditionally. So it is also called... having a price!

Duc Dung