Not missing the opportunity
Southeast Asian football has made great strides in the past half decade. The wave of mixed-race players and naturalized foreign players from many national teams has somewhat raised the level of competition to a higher level.
Coach Thach Bao Khanh - former Vietnamese national team player clearly feels that heat as the ASEAN Cup 2026 approaches.
Sharing with Lao Dong, he said: "The Vietnamese team will not easily defend the championship if they do not promote internal strength with different sources of players. We should remember that the competing candidates including Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have had many changes.
They added many mixed-race players, naturalized foreign players. Many of those faces are still playing in average to fairly good leagues in Europe. Obviously, coach Kim Sang-sik and his team must be determined, create cohesion and further improve their strength.
According to Mr. Thach Bao Khanh, the appearance of overseas Vietnamese players such as Le Giang Patrik in the goalkeeper position or especially 2 naturalized foreign players in the attack including Do Hoang Hen, Nguyen Tai Loc is necessary for the Vietnamese team, in the context that "Golden Star Warriors" are ambitious to maintain the Southeast Asian championship or even international tournaments in the next year.
I am very happy that the Vietnamese team has Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Tai Loc. They have shown stable form in the V.League. At the end of last season, both also had impressive performances.
I hope they will maintain that in their journey with the Vietnamese team, aiming for the V.League championship in the immediate future," Mr. Khanh shared.
Positive competition color
The appearance of Tai Loc and Hoang Hen brings personnel options alongside Xuan Son at ASEAN Cup 2026. In fact, in 2 of the 3 friendly matches against Korean teams recently, Mr. Kim Sang-sik used all 3 players in the starting formation. Notably, when facing Gangwon FC, all 3 strikers appeared together.
In which, Tai Loc made an assist for Xuan Son to head in a goal. Going back in time to the first match, when Vietnam won 6-0 against Siheung FC, Xuan Son also passed the ball for Hoang Hen to score.
Besides the joy when naturalized players integrate well with the national team, some opinions worry that domestic players lack space to perform.
I don't think so. This is even a healthy competition, creating motivation for all players to try harder. They bring a diverse color, making players look at it to learn from each other. Let me emphasize that they are each other. Because naturalized players like Hen, Son, Loc will also look at domestic players to find adaptation.
In the opposite direction, domestic players, especially young talents, can develop their abilities, accumulate experience and progress faster when training with good naturalized foreign players. This is a fair competition, creating motivation for everyone to strive together, raising the level of the Vietnamese national team," coach Thach Bao Khanh said.
Looking from 3 practice matches in Korea, the domestic players also had a good performance. Nguyen Hai Long is the striker who scored the most goals for the Vietnamese team with 3 goals, more than Xuan Son (2 goals), Hoang Hen (2 goals).
In addition, Dinh Bac continues to maintain stable form when training with his seniors. Besides the beautiful goal after the impressive sprint against Siheung FC, he also made his mark in the goal of teammate Pham Gia Hung in the 2-1 win against Gangwon FC.
The message of Dinh Bac and Hai Long was also given in interviews with Vietnamese media. That is, they are not afraid to compete with naturalized strikers to win an official position in the national team squad at the ASEAN Cup 2026.
