The role of the guide
15 years ago, former striker Le Cong Vinh joined Portuguese club Leixoes. He became the first Vietnamese player to play in a major European tournament. The contract between Cong Vinh and Leixoes was directly influenced by coach Henrique Calisto.
The story of Viet Thang being able to go to Porto B club for training in 2006 or Cong Vinh joining Leixoes from September to December 2009 was also thanks to the support of Mr. Calisto.
In his first time abroad, Cong Vinh was overwhelmed by the language barrier and European culture. However, with his efforts, he was able to play a few times for Leixoes, even scoring. That was the goal in the Portuguese National Cup when Leixoes won 2-1 against Casa Pia.
7 years later, Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong received support and connection from a representative company which is a partner of Hoang Anh Gia Lai. Among them, Xuan Truong is the one who has the closest connection with this representative company.
After 1 year playing at Incheon United, Xuan Truong continued to stay in Korea to play for Gangwon FC. Unfortunately, as shared on his personal vlog, the midfielder from Tuyen Quang was hasty and did not think carefully, so he made the wrong choice about the transfer.
Xuan Truong believes that if he continues to patiently stay in Incheon instead of Gangwon, his career could take a different direction.
Need people with heart and vision
The 2019-2020 period witnessed two notable cases of Vietnamese going abroad. Nguyen Van Bakel - former Thanh Hoa FC midfielder (Dutch player naturalized as a Vietnamese) was the one who influenced Doan Van Hau to play for SC Heerenveen, on a one-season loan.
A year earlier, Dang Van Lam moved to Muangthong United from Hai Phong. The Russian representative supported Van Lam a lot in the complicated transfer journey, from connecting with Thailand to resolving the contract termination in a complete manner with the Hai Phong team.
However, it must be added that the story of Vietnamese players going abroad to play football - with the support of guides - is still not complete and thorough.
The failure of Vietnamese players in foreign environments comes from both subjective and objective factors.
Subjectively, it can come from the player's limited skills, lack of patience, effort, and willingness to learn to improve, while objectively, it comes from the support and participation of the guides.
In fact, over the past 10 years, there have been guides who have done a good job of being a broker, that is, bringing Vietnamese players to a club in Japan, Korea or Europe. But there are also brokers or agents who are not really close to or accompanying the players when they have to adapt to all the surrounding factors in a foreign country.
Quang Hai can be considered an example. He could have gone to Sturm Graz, an Austrian team that was considered very suitable for his ability. But in the end, for various reasons, Hai unexpectedly turned to Pau FC.
Things started off well for Quang Hai, when he scored a goal in October 2022. However, the story became more complicated in 2023, when Quang Hai suddenly changed his agent before returning to Vietnam to play for Hanoi Police.
In addition, some Vietnamese player representatives are only qualified to be "brokers" in the V.League. There are cases where they are qualified to go abroad, and even foreign clubs are willing to break the contract terms with their home team in Vietnam. But in the end, the player's representative is not qualified enough to help the "client" realize the move to play abroad.
Or even, the story of going abroad is just a "trick" of the agents to "push up the transfer price" for their players.
