The common concern of Coach Roland and Kim Sang-sik: The story is still the same after many years!

Coach Roland tells a story... from years ago

"U.17 Vietnam needs to play more to get used to the pressure and adapt to the situation. Each match is a challenge, a different context, no match is the same. The more experience, the more solid and mature the players become", Coach Cristiano Roland told Thanh Nien Newspaper when recalling an old story, but over the years it has been hot in Vietnamese football: young players... have too little room to show their talent.

Before taking over the Vietnam U.17 team, Mr. Roland led Hanoi U.17 to win the national U.17 championship. The Brazilian coach admitted that the benefit his students received was not only the title, but also because thanks to reaching the final, Hanoi U.17 played more matches than other teams.

U.17 Vietnam leaves a beautiful mark in the Asian tournament

PHOTO: VFF

In total, U.17 Hanoi played 16 matches. That was all this young Hanoi team had in 1 year. On average, they played less than 2 official matches per month. However, to play like U.17 Hanoi was... a lot.

"What about the teams that don't qualify? They only have eight official matches per year. That's too little for players to get used to the pressure. It's hard for them to get into the rhythm of preparing for a match, they're overwhelmed by the pressure, they're not used to singing the national anthem or having fans in the stadium," said Mr. Roland.

The domestic youth teams, mainly consisting of the U.17 and U.20 groups, currently only have one national tournament to compete in, with about 8-15 matches per year. If they do not compete in a tournament, the U.17 teams often practice "dry", occasionally meeting each other for friendly matches. Some teams participating in international tournaments such as Hanoi and PVF, can only play about 3 more matches.

Not to mention, Vietnamese football has long had teams established just to play in tournaments... and then stop. There are also teams that have to borrow young players from other teams to play in U.17 and U.20 tournaments to meet the standards of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). With only a handful of clubs serious about youth football, a poor youth tournament system and maintaining the old format for many years, the number of 40 official matches/year that Coach Roland desires is still far away.

Don't waste the potential of young people.

PHOTO: VFF

Mr. Roland can only gather troops and train 2-3 weeks before major tournaments such as U.16 Southeast Asia or U.17 Asia. With such a patchwork preparation process, what basis is there to... dream of the World Cup?

The problem is difficult.

The number of young players (U.17, U.20) who can play in V-League can be counted on the fingers of one hand. HAGL is a rare team that creates conditions for young players, when both Tran Gia Bao (17 years old) and Dinh Quang Kiet (18 years old) have played in the main team in V-League.

However, not all teams are as generous with young players as HAGL, SLNA, The Cong Viettel or Hanoi. There are teams that have won the V-League, but their youth achievements are not significant. Perhaps buying good players is still a much safer and easier choice than training young players.

However, if every team is like that, where will Roland coaches... find U.17 players to help Vietnamese football dream of the Youth World Cup?

Coach Kim Sang-sik agrees with the reality: there are very few young players who are given the opportunity to develop. In 2024, Mr. Kim "turned up" the V-League, but only found Tran Trung Kien, Khuat Van Khang and Bui Vi Hao (all born in 2003) who were good enough for the Vietnam team.

In the March training session, Mr. Kim tested the talent Pham Ly Duc, who played all 15 matches at the beginning of the season for HAGL. However, Ly Duc did not meet the requirements. Because the center back born in 2003, like most other young players, did not have the opportunity to play regularly when he was young.

Or most recently, the U.23 Vietnam team that reached the quarter-finals of Asia last year only had 7 names that regularly played in the V-League.

How little playing time can make a player "wither", just look at the U.16 Vietnam team of 9 years ago. Although they reached the quarter-finals of the 2016 U.16 Asian Cup (which is better than the current U.17 Vietnam team), this team only has Nguyen Tran Viet Cuong (Binh Duong Club), Nguyen Huu Thang, Nguyen Thanh Binh (The Cong Viettel) and Vu Dinh Hai (Hanoi) in the V-League.

The rest either play in the first or second division, or have retired. The sad ending may repeat itself, if the laments of Mr. Roland or Kim Sang-sik are still the same... "I know, it's hard, I keep saying it".

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/noi-niem-chung-cua-hlv-roland-va-kim-sang-sik-chuyen-bao-nam-van-the-185250415090912578.htm