Why are overseas Vietnamese players rejected when returning home?

Head coach Hoang Anh Tuan of the Vietnam U20 team has decided to remove Tony Tuan Anh from the U20 team after a week of training because this overseas Vietnamese player does not meet the team's professional requirements.

Tony Tuan Anh was eliminated from the Vietnam U20 team after only 1 week of trial. Photo: Tran Khanh.

Tony Tuan Anh is not the first overseas Vietnamese player to be rejected after returning home for a trial, because before Tony Tuan Anh there was a long list, from Toni Le Hoang in 2005 to Michel Le in 2013 with the Vietnam U23 team, or Keven Nguyen with the Vietnam U19 team in 2015..., and there are many other players who could not even pass the trial round at V-League clubs.

There are many reasons, but the most important reason, according to a veteran coach who has been involved in Vietnamese football for many years, is that if a player proves his ability abroad, there is no way he will come back to Vietnam for a trial.

This is very true in the case of Lee Nguyen, who is considered the best among the overseas Vietnamese players who have played in Vietnam, because Lee Nguyen had already established his name in the US and Europe before HA.GL used a huge salary to invite him back, and even though he could not shine brightly in the V-League due to many objective reasons, Lee Nguyen still became a star again after returning to the US to play.

However, Vietnamese football does not have many talented overseas Vietnamese players like Lee Nguyen, but most of them are only of average ability, like the trio Michal Nguyen, Dang Van Robert and Mac Hong Quan, who have been familiar to the audience in V-League for several years now. All three of these players have the label of overseas Vietnamese, and have all been called up to the national teams, but none of them have really shone.

Explaining this issue, Coach Le Thuy Hai shared: “Honestly, most overseas Vietnamese players who return to the country play very poorly. Either they are praised by the press and social networks, or they also try to polish their own names. During my time working in the V-League, I saw no overseas Vietnamese players who could play.

Dang Van Robert can only be said to be average, Michal Nguyen can only be said to know how to play football until now, Mac Hong Quan is the same, not much better. They have to be very lucky to be accepted by a club and trained, then maybe they can play, but in reality, they are not people with special qualities, the other side plays football like students or amateurs, not necessarily professionally, so it is very difficult to develop.

According to Mr. Hai, another reason why overseas Vietnamese players are difficult to be recognized when they return to Vietnam to seek opportunities to play football is because many of them believe that they have a higher level of football than their local colleagues because they were trained in a football country with a higher level than Vietnam.

Therefore, when they first returned to Vietnam, many overseas Vietnamese players suffered from “culture shock”, which led to them not being able to integrate with their new teammates. Some players even had their family members argue and have conflicts with the leadership of their home team because they were not allowed to play or were not respected as expected.

Over the past 10 years, there have been many overseas Vietnamese players returning to the country for trials through various channels, both at the national team and at the club, but the number of people who have achieved success is almost zero, and the main reason is still their level.

Tony Tuan Anh in the U20 Vietnam team that we mentioned above is such a case. Tony Tuan Anh is considered by his teammates to be very approachable, gentle, friendly, not having any appearance of a "star from Europe", but Tuan Anh's football skills are very average, some people even criticized Tuan Anh for not being able to receive the ball properly in the first step.

Therefore, Tuan Anh could not compete with 29 other players who were the best faces in the U20 age group selected nationwide, and no one was surprised when Tuan Anh became the first player of the Vietnam U20 team to be eliminated from the preliminary list.

It seems that the day when an overseas Vietnamese player becomes a real star of Vietnamese football is still very far away.

According to TPO