After the 33rd SEA Games, the future of coach Mai Duc Chung in the Vietnam women's team is attracting great attention from experts and fans.
Talking to Lao Dong, the strategist born in 1949 confirmed that he had proactively asked the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) for leave after his current contract ended at the end of 2025.
"I have asked the Vietnam Football Federation to resign. However, whether to continue to stay or not will have to wait until the end of the month, when the contract expires, then there will be an official decision, said coach Mai Duc Chung.
The 33rd SEA Games ended with a silver medal for the Vietnam women's team after losing to the Philippines in the final on the evening of December 17.
Although they could not successfully defend the championship title, the performances of coach Mai Duc Chung's students still showed stability in organization, discipline and competitive spirit - factors that have become a constant mark throughout many years he led the team.
In more than two decades of being associated with Vietnamese women's football, coach Mai Duc Chung is considered the one who laid the foundation and brought the team to the regional and continental level. Under his leadership, the Vietnamese women's team has won the SEA Games many times, won the AFF Cup for women in 2019 and especially won a ticket to the 2023 Women's World Cup.
Those achievements are not only meaningful in terms of titles, but also contribute to changing the position and perception of Vietnamese women's football on the regional map. Disciplinary play, resilient competitive spirit and collective cohesion are considered the "brand" that coach Mai Duc Chung has built throughout the long journey.
If the farewell to the Vietnam women's team becomes a reality, this will be an important turning point, opening a new transition period. At that time, the problem for VFF is to find a suitable successor, ensuring professional inheritance, while creating motivation for innovation for the team to adapt to the rapid development of regional women's football.
