On the afternoon of November 13, Coach Kim Sang Sik received good news from the return of Dang Van Lam after injury. Previously, the goalkeeper born in 1993 suffered a thigh strain in the first training session of the Vietnam team , preparing for the away match against Laos in the final qualifying round of the 2027 Asian Cup.

Van Lam's recovery gives coach Kim Sang Sik three options for the national team's goalkeeping position, along with Dinh Trieu and Van Viet. This also means the Korean strategist will have a bigger headache when deciding who will be the starting goalkeeper in the upcoming match against Laos.

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Van Lam plays well at the club but makes mistakes for the Vietnam national team.

However, according to experts, Dang Van Lam's chances are not many. In addition to the fact that he still needs more time to fully recover from his injury, coach Kim Sang Sik has started to give more opportunities to young goalkeepers.

In the training session in October, Dang Van Lam was the starting goalkeeper when the Vietnamese team played the first leg against Nepal, but the Ninh Binh Club goalkeeper lost points due to his mistake.

That was the situation that happened at the beginning of the second half, when Pham Xuan Manh returned the ball to Van Lam. The 32-year-old goalkeeper suddenly passed the ball wrong, putting the Vietnamese team's goal in danger. Fortunately, the Nepalese player did not take advantage of the opportunity, and Duy Manh was able to clear the danger in time. If the opposing player was a more classy striker, Van Lam could have paid a heavy price for this regrettable carelessness.

Although Vietnam won the final match, Van Lam no longer has a chance in the return match against Nepal. The person chosen by coach Kim Sang Sik is the young face Trung Kien.

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Opportunity for Van Viet?

In this training session, Trung Kien returned to U22 Vietnam, but the national team had Van Viet and experienced goalkeeper Dinh Trieu. Of these two goalkeepers, coach Kim has a lot of trust in Dinh Trieu, but if this strategist chooses Van Viet to start in the match against Laos, it will not be a surprise.

The reason is because Van Viet is in stable form in the V-League (he only conceded 8 goals in 11 matches with The Cong Viettel Club). Moreover, the match against Laos is not too stressful for the Vietnamese team's defense, so coach Kim Sang Sik will likely have some experiments to refresh the squad as well as the playing style, in order to calculate the long-term for the decisive match against Malaysia in March 2026.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/dang-van-lam-de-lam-kep-phu-tran-tuyen-viet-nam-vs-lao-2462560.html