Building a standard 'runway' for the Vietnamese team

The Vietnamese team is the current Southeast Asian champion. To maintain this position and aim for continental goals such as the 2027 Asian Cup, we need to build a successor force capable of replacing the seniors. Recently, the U.17 and U.22 Vietnamese teams have sent out positive signals, opening the door to the future for the national team.

REVEALING YOUNG TALENTS

It is a pity that the U.17 Vietnam team failed to qualify for the 2025 World Cup, but the young players have gained valuable experience when they have to compete with extremely strong opponents such as Japan, Australia and the UAE. We should not lull ourselves to sleep with all-drawn matches, but the above results should be viewed positively. Factors such as goalkeeper Hoa Xuan Tin, Chu Ngoc Nguyen Luc, Le Tan Dung, Le Huy Viet Anh, Tran Gia Bao, Hoang Trong Duy Khang... soon revealed their qualities of playing intelligently and handling techniques that are not inferior to their colleagues from strong football backgrounds.

Young players will mature quickly if they are constantly challenged in quality tournaments.

PHOTO: MINH TU

Previously, at the CFA Team China 2025 friendly tournament, the U.22 Vietnam team also made a good impression when facing top Asian youth teams such as Korea, Uzbekistan, and China. If Dinh Xuan Tien, Nguyen Van Truong, Nguyen Quoc Viet... had been noticed before, the appearance of Vietnamese-American player Viktor Le has helped coach Kim Sang-sik have another good choice. This is a promising creative midfielder with good tactical vision. Having just shone at U.22, Viktor Le continued to make his mark at Ha Tinh Club when he assisted his teammates to score 2 goals in the match against The Cong Viettel in round 17 of the V-League. In addition to the players mentioned above, we still have strange but familiar factors because they have trained with the U.23 team and the national team such as Nguyen Dinh Bac, Khuat Van Khang, Nguyen Thai Son, Tran Trung Kien...

It is estimated that there are currently about 35 - 40 talented young players for the Vietnamese national team's coaching staff to screen, helping the U.22 team compete at the 33rd SEA Games in 2025 or adding to the national team to compete in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers.

NEED REAL COMBAT ENVIRONMENT

In order for young talents to mature early, it is necessary to create more conditions for them to gain experience and hone their battle skills. The previous generation of players such as Duy Manh, Quang Hai, Hoang Duc, Cong Phuong... thanks to being able to play regularly at club level or youth teams, have progressed quite quickly, contributing greatly to the success of the national team.

The young generation of players like Pham Ly Duc (right) will be the future of Vietnamese football.

In an effort to help young players develop their abilities early, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) has signed cooperation agreements with many football federations and associations such as Brazil, Japan, Korea, and the UAE, creating conditions for young teams to have more useful matches. In 2024, China invited Vietnam to participate in 5 tournaments including U.16, U.19, U.21, both 11-a-side women's football and women's futsal. In the near future, the VFF will sign a deeper cooperation agreement with the Chinese Football Federation, continuing to send young Vietnamese teams to play friendly matches and gain experience.

According to experts' calculations, a young player needs at least 30 matches/year with a distance of 9-10 km in 90 minutes. In Japan, many localities operate football according to a pyramid model, with levels from low to high such as: school level (Junior/School), youth level (Junior-Youth), youth-student level (Youth-Student) and the highest level is professional level (Pro). Not to mention the system of school, high school, and university tournaments organized in parallel with professional tournaments, which is a good condition to help young players mature early.

Vietnamese football has not been able to do that. Young Vietnamese players have few opportunities to play because many coaches prefer to use foreign players to maintain their achievements. The case of HAGL Club boldly using "homegrown products" such as Tran Gia Bao, Pham Ly Duc, Dinh Quang Kiet in V-League should be encouraged.

CLUBS DON'T WASTE YOUNG TALENTS

Vietnam currently only has a few training centers that provide important human resources for teams such as Hanoi , HAGL, The Cong Viettel, SLNA, Binh Duong... Such a selection area is still not wide enough, with not many numbers. If we look at the two big football countries, Japan and Korea, we still have a lot of work to do in youth training.

There is a paradox in Vietnam, players should be equipped with skills and a good football mindset at the club, but this is the responsibility of coaches in the youth teams. Therefore, the role of teachers in the youth teams becomes extremely important, as coach Cristiano Roland did for the U.17. Similarly, in the past, we had coaches Hoang Anh Tuan (U.20), Guillaume Graechen (U.19) who also helped many young players become famous.

Vietnamese football is aiming for the SEA Games at the end of the year in Thailand. Therefore, clubs should not delay in creating conditions for players of the U.17, U.20, U.22 age groups to compete and gain experience. Meanwhile, the national team competing in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers is also a motivation for young players to strive to catch the eye of captain Kim Sang-sik.

Of course, finding a few naturalized players like Nguyen Xuan Son (or later Hendrio Araujo Da Silva) to help the national team become stronger is a good solution. But the path to sustainable development is still to build internal strength, using "homegrown" players. This is like we are building a runway to help the Vietnamese team take off in the future.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/xay-duong-bang-chuan-cho-doi-tuyen-viet-nam-185250414221319633.htm