Popov multiple personality

Velizar Popov can beat any V.League club if they meet at least twice. Except Hoang Anh Gia Lai. He is willing to criticize the bad points of Vietnamese football. But the coach from Europe is also willing to compromise with it to achieve his goal.

Win against a very strong team, lose against a very weak team

“The truth is I can’t beat HAGL. This is the only team in Vietnam that I haven’t been able to beat,” coach Velizar Popov, who won 2 National Cups and 1 Super Cup in just over 3 seasons working in the V.League, gave a bitter statistic.

This coach has contradictory views on Vietnamese football.

A few days ago, in round 7 of V.League 2025/26, The Cong Viettel with a 7-match unbeaten streak and standing at the top of the rankings confidently marched to HAGL's field. Mr. Popov personally hoped to erase the 5-match streak of not winning against the team from the Mountain City. That optimism was completely consistent with the context. HAGL is having the worst streak in history. The Pleiku home team has not won a single match in the last 7 rounds. In fact, HAGL's attack has only scored 1 goal.

While HAGL was in a precarious situation, The Cong Viettel and Mr. Popov fell in an unexpected way. From the position of a club that played very well against strong candidates for the championship, Coach Popov's students fell in the Mountain City with a score of 1-2. The most solid defense in the tournament conceded 2 goals against the worst offense in the previous 7 rounds. Meanwhile, Lucao, Xuan Tien, Tien Anh,... spent 90 soulless minutes facing the opponent's goal.

Coach Popov can hardly justify his players’ surprisingly poor performance. He can only rely on his own bad luck against HAGL, as a cover to explain his team’s unfortunate stumble. Well, that is also a paradox for Popov. This coach can play well with The Cong Viettel against strong representatives of V.League. But against a weak opponent like HAGL in the past 3 years, he cannot decode it.

Remember that in V.League, Coach Popov has met 19 different clubs. If we consider the opponents that this coach himself has faced at least 2 times, HAGL is the team that he has not been able to defeat. After 6 times competing with Mr. Duc's club, this coach lost 3 times and drew 3 matches when leading Thanh Hoa and currently The Cong Viettel.

Contradictions in philosophy

Before the unexpected defeat against HAGL, Coach Velizar Popov stirred up the entire V.League with a remarkable statement. “To win the V.League, it depends on many factors outside the field. Do you understand what I mean? The Cong Viettel is alone, not part of any system. Therefore, each match in the V.League for us is no different from the final, and each victory is extremely sweet,” Coach Popov gave a remarkable opinion on October 20.

After the defeat against HAGL, Mr. Popov still maintained the above viewpoint in the press conference. However, this military leader himself suffered a defeat in a match that was not worth losing. In addition, the way The Cong Viettel fell was not due to external factors. Because according to experts, the army team lost because of their poor performance in Pleiku rather than HAGL playing an excellent match.

Popov can criticize the entire V.League for being against The Cong Viettel in their lone journey towards the championship. But he himself made things difficult for himself by not being able to resolve a match where he seemed to have secured 3 points in hand.

Another point of view was also constructively commented by the coach from Europe. He even mentioned it twice in the press conference in two consecutive matches. “In the match against Da Nang , the opponent slowed down the match for dozens of minutes many times. This is not football. Vietnamese football will not be able to develop if there are teams playing like this. If this continues for the next 2-3 years, the Vietnamese team may lose to Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia and Laos," coach Popov shared.

Coach Velizar Popov is right about the reality of Vietnamese football over the past years. Other coaches from both domestic and foreign countries also share the same opinion about the actual match time being too modest in V.League. That is also the reason why the tournament organizers are forced to increase the extra time, in order to avoid the problem of "lying on the field, dragging out every minute" of many teams.

Mr. Popov's point of view would be absolutely supported if this coach himself did not compromise with... time-wasting. Remember in the semi-final of the 2023/24 National Cup, against a very strong Nam Dinh at that time, Thanh Hoa led by coach Popov was forced to waste time at certain moments in the second half. Many members of Nam Dinh were upset when witnessing goalkeeper Xuan Hoang and some Thanh Hoa players deliberately using tricks such as lying on the field, delaying the ball or performing blatant time-wasting moves to provoke the opponent or trying to bring the match to a close.

Outside the cabin, coach Velizar Popov… said nothing. He accepted a more humble position than Thanh Hoa’s opponent, and at the same time accepted to compromise with the “bad habits” that still exist in Vietnamese football. And perhaps, this charismatic coach has forgotten about that match, leading to his statement that Vietnamese football will not be able to develop if there are teams that intentionally slow down the pace of the match for dozens of minutes!

Popov's Homecoming

In round 9 of V.League 2025/26, Coach Popov will return to Thanh Hoa Stadium, meeting the old team he has accompanied for 3 seasons. If it weren't for the 10 consecutive winless matches earlier this year, Mr. Popov might still be with Thanh Hoa until now. This coach admitted that he was harsh with the Board of Directors about the team's development plan. But after all, he himself affirmed that he has changed a lot thanks to leading the representative of Thanh Hoa.

But this is not the time for Popov and the Thanh Hoa Club's Board of Directors to talk about the past. While the Bulgarian coach has just experienced a heavily criticized defeat against HAGL, Thanh Hoa has just recovered from a series of bad matches, with a determined victory against Song Lam Nghe An.

Both coach Popov and Thanh Hoa Club are in a difficult period. Both sides need to win each other if they do not want to continue to fall into difficulties.

Source: https://cand.com.vn/guong-mat-the-thao/popov-da-nhan-cach-i786516/