Replacing Xuan Son
One of the questions that coach Kim Sang-sik needs to answer and completely resolve is to find an alternative to Nguyen Xuan Son, at least from now until September 2025.
Remember, 1/3 of the goals that the Vietnamese team scored at the 2024 ASEAN Cup came from Xuan Son. Of the 7 goals, the striker born in 1997 scored twice to break the deadlock.
In addition, in the remaining 3 matches, Xuan Son had 2 assists for Vi Hao and Tien Linh to score. In the second leg of the ASEAN Cup final against Thailand, although he did not directly finish or pass the ball to his teammate to score, Xuan Son also indirectly attracted the opposing defender to mark him, thereby opening up an opportunity for Tuan Hai to open the score from the 8th minute.
Xuan Son's influence on the Vietnam national team is very obvious. Invisibly, his absence due to injury for a long time also affected the team's attack.
Experimenting with Quang Hai playing the highest striker in the friendly match against Cambodia is impossible. The idea of using Hoang Duc to play as a false number 9 like under Philippe Troussier was also quite risky. Meanwhile, Tuan Hai has been away from the striker role for the past 3-4 years.
Mr. Kim's rare trust is currently directed towards Tien Linh. The 28-year-old striker is also trying very hard to make the Korean coach feel secure.
"I'm fine and in good shape. I also have great motivation to try because I am playing at the familiar home stadium of Binh Duong club", Tien Linh believes that he will fill the void left by Xuan Son.
How to attack
At the pre-match press conference, Tien Linh affirmed that he will help the Vietnamese team win against the Lao team. Coach Kim Sang-sik also set a more direct goal: "Every match is important and scoring many goals will help the team easily go through. I hope the players will score many goals right from the first half and contribute a good match".
Mr. Kim's statement means that the Vietnamese team will play an attacking game to score many goals. In fact, half of this task was achieved when Vietnam overwhelmed Cambodia in a friendly match. However, the 2 goals came only after 2 individual shining situations of Hai Long and Van Vi.
Fans expect more from the performance of the Vietnamese team. The appearance of Tien Linh in attack promises to help the home team be sharper in the coordination of the opposing team's field.
Tien Linh's ability to choose a spot and move without the ball is enough to profit and damage the Lao national team's defense. In addition, he was also more "venerable" in passing the ball by the pass and crossing from both sides of his teammates.
The important thing is that Hoang Duc, Van Thanh, Hai Long or Van Vi need to make good enough passes to create opportunities for Tien Linh in the 16m50 round. This is something they have not done against Cambodia, when the combinations are too predictable and easy to predict.
In the past few days, the Vietnamese team has also focused on key coordination situations in the middle between Hoang Duc and Tien Linh. At the same time, Mr. Kim wants the players to be ready for situations where the ball arises, in order to take advantage of the opportunity to put pressure and score against the Laos team.
In the end, Laos is a team weaker than Vietnam in many aspects. This is the basis for Tien Linh and his teammates to be more confident in a big win, starting the 3rd qualifying round of the 2027 Asian Cup.
