Not only failing on the field, the crisis of the Vietnamese team under coach Philippe Troussier started right from the press conference room, from the conflict between him and the media.
It is no coincidence that the criteria of “culture, openness to learning and acceptance of differences” are the factors that the Vietnam Football Federation puts at the top of its list when searching for a replacement for Coach Troussier. The French coach’s failure in Vietnam must be seen beyond the football field.
Coach Troussier parted ways with the Vietnam national team after just over a year of working, even though his initial contract was due to expire in 2026.
The issue of achievements is only part of the crisis that the Vietnam national team and the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) have to deal with after parting ways with coach Troussier. It is a media crisis. It has been a long time since the Vietnam national team has been in a state like the present, when the opinions directed towards the team and the federation are almost all negative.
That heavy atmosphere was largely created by Coach Troussier, not just the matter of results. Mr. Troussier not only brought bad results on the field. Off the field, he also created a suffocating atmosphere, with many shocking statements, causing surprise from his students to the media and fans.
The experience under Mr. Troussier shows a completely different style from Coach Park Hang Seo and more broadly, all other Asian coaches. The French coach possesses a fierce, straightforward personality, not afraid to discuss sensitive issues such as when he said that 80% of fans do not support him, when he said that many people are waiting for the VFF to fire him, when he publicly said that Hoang Duc could win the Golden Ball but was still not suitable for the national team...
Coach Troussier's statements in the past six months have always put him in a position of... confronting public opinion.
Such statements can be found a lot under Coach Troussier and turn every press conference into a war and create a series of unnecessary controversies, negatively affecting himself, his students, the media and even the fans.
Maybe that was Coach Troussier's way of drawing criticism away from his players and the technical side of things. However, when the results on the field were not good, that controversy became a catalyst that made the criticism more intense.
Those who are observant will realize that the Vietnamese team has long since stopped favoring coaches from Europe. Before Mr. Troussier, the last European coach was Falko Goetz more than 10 years ago. Mr. Goetz also left in failure after more than half a year.
The huge cultural differences seem to be the common denominator of these coaches. This is not only happening in Vietnam. In Park Hang Seo’s home country, coach Jurgen Klinsmann also received a lot of criticism before being fired. Experienced coach Carlos Queiroz was also criticized for “spending too much time in Europe rather than focusing on working in Iran”.
That is probably the reason for the return of local coaches across Asia. Of the top six teams in the continent, five use foreign coaches. Roberto Mancini of Saudi Arabia is the only foreign coach in this group.
Unlike the club level, the national team is a collection of many talents from many teams in a short time, most of them have strong personalities, and are especially interested by a large fan community. Coaching the national team therefore needs to emphasize the element of cohesion in addition to normal training. Compared to foreign coaches, this is an area where domestic coaches can do better.
Of course, that does not mean that the Vietnamese team also needs a new domestic coach. That only shows that cultural differences and the issue of statements must be given special consideration in the journey to find a new captain of the VFF.
Specific rules about speaking, what to say, what should be said, and what not to say are no longer strange in sports, typically the principle of information confidentiality and numbers in contracts.
"Perhaps we need to review our behavior towards the coach. We are the boss, he is the employee, we have to adjust him. Choosing him may not be wrong, but it seems we cannot control him. He has weaknesses but we cannot supplement them in time," said Mr. Le Huy Khoa, who used to work for the Vietnamese team as an assistant - a communication bridge - for coach Park Hang Seo.
Of course, the national team head coach needs to have the initiative in making decisions and the VFF should not interfere too much. However, that does not mean that the VFF allows the coach to have complete freedom to do as he pleases. There needs to be "soft" measures to control, for example right from the matter of speaking.
Directing speech is also necessary in the context of increasingly developing social networks and the press, every careless statement will become bait for social networks, stirring up unnecessary conflicts. This happened a lot under Mr. Troussier.
VFF certainly paid a high price for this lesson under Coach Troussier. Now it is time for them to show that they have learned from this lesson.
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