One of the things raised by the representative of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) leadership after the failure of the Vietnam U20 team in the 2027 AFC U20 Asian Cup qualifiers is that "youth training needs to be carried out in a continuous and systematic direction, instead of focusing short-term on each tournament".
For professionals, media, and fans, this "lesson" is not only not new but it is very old, and has been talked about a lot in recent years. The problem is that those who speak out are not in the position or position that can decide the change for youth training.
Unfortunately, before the recent defeat of the U20 team, Vietnamese youth football has achieved certain successes on some fronts. This, invisibly, makes managers, fans or media believe that choosing the method and path they are taking is the right one.
The cheering, the simmering joy, makes people forget that even in victory, people need to draw lessons learned, not just wait until each failure. Therefore, the irony to be humorous, as people jokingly say, is that the thread of experience is always long.
Don't confuse lifelong learning and drawing lessons from lessons after failure. The point here is, drawing experience but accompanying actions to correct it must be commensurate.
Not negative enough to talk about "not wanting to change", but right from the cooperation with Japanese football - a country that has affirmed its effectiveness in the youth football development model for many years, but until now only mentioning "continuity" and "system", it is clearly too slow.
Looking at objective issues to assess more comprehensively, but the core still belongs to ourselves. Cooperating with Japanese football to "improve football thinking" and "discipline", but it seems that not only youth football, but also the national team level is "difficult to stay" with discipline.
Therefore, when people say that Vietnamese football needs to find a "suitable" coach, the achievements in the region are still there, but to develop and upgrade, it is probably still difficult to escape the circle of doubt for many years to come.
The thread of experience, of course, continues to lengthen...
