Park Hang-seo

That is a statement worth pondering when Korean football is considered the best in Asia. But Son Heung-min’s father has different thoughts and does not want the Korean team to win the 2024 Asian Cup, because this glory could cause Korean football to ignore the things that need to change to develop to a new level.

Mr. Son Woong-jung further analyzed: “The Korean team has not won the Asian Cup for 64 years, but we beat Japan with an empty capacity, that is just self-deception”. It can be understood that Son Heung-min’s father believes that Korean football is developing slowly and is far behind Japan.

Let’s take an example similar to Son Heung-min’s father’s opinion, which is the story of Chinese football after 22 years of participating in the 2002 World Cup. China reached the 2002 World Cup partly thanks to South Korea and Japan is the co-host, and Australia has not yet joined the Asian Football Confederation.

In particular, China was lucky to enter the group, avoiding Iran and Saudi Arabia. Without Japan and South Korea in the qualifying round, without Iran and Saudi Arabia, China’s chance to go to the World Cup is within reach. The first ticket to the 2002 World Cup became a historical milestone for Chinese football and they took it as a premise to set their ambition to win the 2050 World Cup, although the nature of their level has not been able to reach the top 4 in Asia and has not yet been achieved. World Cup level.

Everything has two sides and even the World Cup ticket mentioned above “harms” Chinese football. The positive side is to create a premise and milestone for a football platform to plan to go further, attracting many investors to football and the attention of the audience. But the downside is that a series of problems arise for Chinese football, because they are essentially just lucky and do not have enough strength and foundation of a World Cup-level team. Plans to develop Chinese football went bankrupt, the amount of money invested in football was too large, causing negative things to happen. Chinese football is so sick that the country’s media commented last year: “Diseases can only be cured when we scrape poison from the bones. Chinese football cannot wait any longer”.

And is the statement of superstar Son Heung-min’s father worth pondering for Vietnamese football?

Vietnam national team won the AFF Cup 2008, then fell ill with a series of negative problems from teams such as Dong Nai and Ninh Binh. The entire football industry lost confidence to the point that during that period, VFF leaders many times used the phrase “selling out” to talk about losses that, in their opinion, were suspicious.

10 years later, Vietnamese football “took off” with Mr. Duc, coach Park Hang-seo and the generation of Cong Phuong and Quang Hai. The consecutive successes under Coach Park Hang-seo are truly something to be proud of, especially entering the third qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup for the first time and being runner-up at the 2018 Asian U23 Championship. However, the ambition of the 2026 World Cup will be a worthy story. to tell. Not discussing the team’s ability and playing style under coach Troussier, the issue is the general situation of Vietnamese football. Does all the elements come together to think about the World Cup?

It is not difficult to see that since the success of coach Park Hang-seo, the fate of professional clubs is still like “plastic balls”. Quang Ninh Club, Saigon FC, Can Tho FC dropped out of the tournament one after another, some teams were declared dead. Debting money to players happens often, they are “extorted” and lose all their salaries and bribes. The players are owed money, so there is a threat of a strike while the tournament is taking place. The quality of the field has improved in some teams, but the overall situation is still not good.

Coach Troussier himself criticized the My Dinh field on the day of the 0-1 loss to Iraq in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. Some football teams play professionally but do not meet the criteria of the Asian Football Confederation, and often have to play under special request. Vietnamese players have not been able to successfully go abroad, they all have to be on reserve. The football base is still in a situation where the top has more teams than the bottom, the V.League has 14 teams but the First Division has 11 teams… Vietnamese football clearly still has too many difficult problems. needs to be changed.

Anyone wants Vietnamese football to reach the World Cup, but a strong, comprehensively developed football background will be especially important. Because the strength of football is improving day by day, one day it will reach World Cup level. On the contrary, the worry may be similar to superstar Son Heung-min’s father’s statement about Korean football.