Choosing a new coach for the Vietnam national team: How long does the cycle of success last?

When Mr. Troussier failed miserably and paid with his own job, few people thought about the objective difficulties this coach encountered. The successful cycle of Vietnamese football has passed.

Mr. Troussier took on the task when the Vietnamese team was going from the peak to the long slope. The cycle of success of football will greatly determine the working conditions of a national team head coach.

How long will the success cycle last?

" If we look at the V.League, the team with the longest successful cycle so far is definitely Hanoi club. Their winning streak was only interrupted for 1-2 years. Under coach Chu Dinh Nghiem, this team became the hardest to beat.

As for the Vietnam national team, I think that Mr. Park Hang Seo has maintained good results for a long time. A successful cycle of a club or national team will last from 3-5 years. There will be special cases of success maintained for a long time, but there is not a common denominator for reference, " Technical Director Hoang Thanh Tung of Thanh Hoa Club answered VTC News.

Mr. Park Hang Seo is the most successful in the history of Vietnamese football.

The Vietnamese national team began its most glorious period in history in 2018. Many people thought that the success ended when Mr. Park Hang Seo did not renew his contract with the VFF. However, the signs of decline of the national team began even when this coach was still in office. The Vietnamese team reached its limit when it passed the second qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup.

Even at the AFF Cup, Mr. Park's Vietnamese team also lost to the Thai team in two consecutive tournaments. In 2022, the Korean coach received a lot of criticism because of the boring playing style of the Vietnamese team. The pressure comes from the fact that Coach Park Hang Seo and his team no longer win, but instead have many failures. The opponents in 2022 are mostly very strong, but basically, the Vietnamese team is not any better.

The most successful period of the Vietnam national team lasted exactly 4 years. In history, there was another remarkable period of success for the VFF in 2007-2009. The Vietnam national team passed the group stage of the 2007 Asian Cup, won the 2008 AFF Cup with coach Riedl and then Calisto. This period lasted 3 years.

The common point of the above successful periods is that the Vietnamese team has 2-3 generations of players with similar quality. This creates a team that is both young and experienced, and provides foreign coaches with enough ingredients to create a unified block.

What is the "golden point" that helps the Vietnamese team succeed?

When asked about what makes a successful cycle, Mr. Hoang Thanh Tung stated his opinion: " For Vietnamese football, the most successful time comes when the youth training of the teams is effective, producing many good generations of players. 2018 is when HAGL and Hanoi FC players have reached maturity in their careers. Other training centers such as Song Lam Nghe An, Thanh Hoa or PVF, The Cong Viettel all provide many additional options ."

Thus, it is clear that for a head coach to be successful, the Vietnamese team still needs a solid foundation from V.League, where each team and each player are important cells.

Many stars of the Vietnamese team are in decline.

Coach Troussier can clearly do better than what just happened. However, to say that the French coach can succeed would be a far-fetched story. The most realistic thing that VFF can think of when accompanying Mr. Troussier is the foundation for the World Cup dream.

When a series of stars like Que Ngoc Hai, Nguyen Tien Linh, Nguyen Quang Hai, Cong Phuong, Van Hau declined due to injuries or not reaching their peak performance, the Vietnamese team immediately weakened. Public opinion wanted Mr. Park to replace the personnel, but he refused to do so.

It was not until Coach Troussier made a drastic change in the squad that everyone realized that Vietnamese football was currently lacking in the next generation of players. To return to a successful cycle, there needed to be many good players ready to replace their seniors. The end of a successful cycle is the stage of rebuilding and developing the team again.

The problem with Vietnamese football is that the time it takes to "lose steam" and come back is too long for many different reasons. Currently, V.League is becoming more and more professional but there are many difficult problems to solve, which have gone beyond the management of VFF or VPF.

Looking at the countries in the Southeast Asian region, only Thailand is the country with the best squad turnover. This is the reason why their successful cycle returns faster than their opponents. Not only young domestic players, Thai players from overseas can also provide abundant resources. Thai League has enough potential to train and provide the national team with good coaches such as Ishii Masatada, Alexandre Polking or Kiatisak.

Having seen clearly its own internal situation, VFF should probably give a more suitable direction and goal to coach Troussier’s successor. Instead of talking too much about the World Cup, just be satisfied with bringing the Vietnamese team out of the quagmire. One coach cannot carry and change the whole football. Accumulation, building the foundation, and looking towards the future are the most important goals at this time.

Mai Phuong

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