In the middle of this week, at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 promotion event held in Shanghai (China), FIFA President Gianni Infantino gave a speech. Although he talked about Chinese football, there were also related ideas, quite close to current Vietnamese football.
Accordingly, after emphasizing that “we are not satisfied with the way football has developed in the past few years (in China) and must change”, the FIFA President affirmed, “There are no shortcuts; the only effective formula is hard work”. Chinese football used to be among the top strong teams in Asia, full of potential and also participated in the World Cup once (2002).
However, the ambition to develop quickly by using finance and investment to bring the world's top stars to the National Championship is not only ineffective but also becomes a "bomb" that pushes this country's football into crisis, the team declines, even when hiring top coaches such as Marcelo Lippi, Jose Antonio Camacho or former Golden Ball Fabio Cannavaro.
With Vietnamese sports and football, after re-integrating into the international arena, the mindset of “taking shortcuts, getting ahead” - investing heavily in a period, is somewhat effective, but over time, it is only a temporary story. Up to this point, the temporary story still exists and is deeply ingrained in the mindset and way of doing football.
The team's achievements are a reflection. It is not without reason that after 10 years, the Vietnam team won the AFF Cup again (2008 to 2018), and only in 2019 did it quench its thirst for gold at the SEA Games (but it was the U23 team, not the national team). The success of youth football does not accurately reflect the strength of the football industry, but for a long time, Vietnamese football has placed too much importance on this level.
Youth football success should be the foundation for the national team, but in the end, many factors fall into a state of "forced maturity". Training and development are not on a step-by-step basis. The leaps and bounds, in the end, only harm the players themselves (who develop early and lose form early) and football as a whole.
Vietnamese football will also have to start over, change, with the word "dare to act", not just talk.
