After more than three years of attachment to Vietnamese football, goalkeeper Le Giang Patrik believes that the experiences in the S-shaped land have brought him more lessons than three decades of living in Europe.
In a recent interview, the Vietnamese international shared: "Three and a half years in Vietnam gave me more lessons than 30 years living in Europe".
According to Patrik, the biggest difficulty when deciding to leave Europe is not in expertise but in having to step out of his comfort zone. He has to adapt to a completely new environment, from climate, language to living culture.
The goalkeeper born in 1992 revealed that the first months in Vietnam were the most difficult period of his life. The temperature of nearly 40 degrees Celsius and high humidity always overloaded his body. Patrik said that after each match, he can lose about 4 kg due to dehydration, which he considers normal when playing in Southeast Asia.
However, it is these challenges that help the goalkeeper currently playing for the Vietnamese national team completely change his way of life, recovering physical strength as well as life thinking.
Not only adapting to a new life, Patrik also praised Vietnamese football a lot. He said that before coming to the V-League, many people in Slovakia had doubted the quality of the tournament, even jokingly asked if he needed to bring gloves to play.
However, reality is completely opposite to what he imagined.
Patrik commented: "This is a very harsh tournament and requires high physical strength. I am really surprised by the technique of the Vietnamese players. What impressed me the most is their fighting spirit and training consciousness. You never have to urge Vietnamese players to try harder on the training ground.
According to the goalkeeper of Vietnamese-Slovak descent, diligence has become a "DNA" of Vietnamese people. This is also the reason why many foreign players, even though they have played in top European leagues, still face difficulties when coming to Vietnam if they cannot adapt to the environment and football culture.
After completing the naturalization process and being approved by FIFA to transfer the federation, Le Giang Patrik made his debut for the Vietnamese national team in the victory over Myanmar, before continuing to keep a clean sheet in the victory over Timor-Leste at the ASEAN Cup 2026. For him, wearing the Vietnamese national team jersey is the result of a journey of more than three years of persistently pursuing his dream.
