The picture of boredom over the past decade
Over the past 10 years, Vietnamese football has made significant progress. The U23 Vietnam team has continuously participated in the U23 Asian Cup finals since 2016. In particular, the top was the runner-up in 2018, which created a buzz across the continent.
The U17 and U19 Vietnam teams are also regularly present in the Asian finals at the corresponding age level. Notably, in 2017, the generation of players Quang Hai, Van Hau, Tien Dung... helped Vietnam reach the U20 World Cup finals. This is still the only youth World Cup tournament that Vietnamese football has a representative to participate in.
VFF President Tran Quoc Tuan has repeatedly emphasized that if he wants the Vietnamese team to participate in the world arena, the previous national youth teams need to regularly participate in the continental finals. They even have to try to compete for tickets to the U17 or U20 World Cup.
The above strategy of the Vietnam Football Federation is completely correct. But to realize the World Cup dream, domestic football needs many generations of players to focus on developing such as the Cong Phuong and Quang Hai generations.
Remember, they brought the Vietnamese team to the final qualifying round of the World Cup for the strongest continental teams for the first time in 2022, thereby starting a great ambition later on.
More important training for young people
The success of Cong Phuong and Quang Hai comes from the key youth training process from Hoang Anh Gia Lai Academy, Hanoi, PVF, Viettel and a number of other clubs. The importance of youth football training academies is therefore recognized and evaluated according to standards.
However, the foundation of this strategy is still only concentrated in a few potential or traditional teams. For example, Song Lam Nghe An, Viettel, PVF, Hanoi or Hoang Anh Gia Lai. Some "training coaches" of Ba Ria Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City are not strong enough to contribute many talents to the country's football.
More regrettably, in the opposite direction, many strong teams in youth training are struggling due to financial problems, leading to the inability to maintain operations or lack of motivation and potential to "tease" good players.
10 years ago, coach Hoang Anh Tuan shared: "Vietnamese football does not have many academies to train youth football. If each generation of players can only find 50 players, then the screening to select good faces only revolves around that many people.
Look to Thailand, every professional club has a youth football academy. Thanks to that, they can own 100-200 players for a youth team. Through the selection and competition process, Thailand of course has a quality force".
A decade later, Mr. Velizar Popov - the new coach of The Cong Viettel still sees similar problems in youth training in Vietnam.
"There are still many Vietnamese clubs that do not have training facilities or do not organize adequate academies. This is really sad. Many young talents do not have the opportunity to practice under normal conditions. This is something that needs to be changed as soon as possible," said Mr. Popov.
Another issue in Vietnamese football's internal strength that Mr. Popov directly said: "A common mistake is that there are young football coaches who start teaching tactics to children from the age of 1011, while they have not yet controlled the ball, have not dribbled, passed or finished basically.
Maybe they only care about winning and not really focusing on helping children develop properly. In youth football, there cannot be pressure on immediate results, because this is a long-term development process, lasting from the age of 10 to 20".
The core story related to Vietnamese youth football is also the frequency and quantity of matches for players aged 15-19. It is undeniable that VFF's efforts to increase the number of matches in national youth tournaments (16 National U17 matches, 16 National U19 matches and 11 National U21 matches). However, not every young player is capable of playing on all these fronts.
Many players have to " sit and play" when they lack a playing field to gradually develop their qualities. In many cases, they even have to retire to find another turning point in their lives.
The aspiration for a World Cup of Vietnamese football has been clearly demonstrated in the past 10 years. The orientation to reach the continental and world level of the country's football is correct, but developing internal resources needs to be more focused and more tight in the new period.
