“Thin rice” is difficult to swim to the big sea

In the AFC Champions League 2022, HAGL conceded 3 times. Worth mentioning, 2 goals conceded from a fixed situation and 1 goal conceded from the ball. HAGL also has difficulty in most of the fixed balls, it feels like every time they get a corner, the opponent will easily score.

Meanwhile, U23 Vietnam plays with U20 Korea – a team with 7 players who are students. Mr. Park’s team was conceded after a corner kick from Korea U20, Lee Young Jun jumped to head the net U23 Vietnam.

It should be mentioned, South Korea’s U20 is 2-3 years younger than Vietnam’s U23, but they have a superior height. The shortest player is 1.78 m tall, the tallest is 1.91 m. The young Korean team has a strong physical foundation, superior to U23 Vietnam.

Fitness can be said to be the weak point of the Vietnamese team when playing against teams like Korea, Japan, Australia… At the club level, the same story happens with HAGL when playing against Yokohama and Sydney.

Coach of Jeonbuk Hyundai Club – Mr. Kim Sang Sik commented:“The physique of Vietnamese players in particular and Southeast Asia in general is not good compared to Korean players. That needs to improve in the next 3 years.”

Mr. Kim commented on physical fitness to talk about barriers for Vietnamese players to go abroad. National football talents like Cong Phuong, Xuan Truong, Tuan Anh, Quang Hai all have great limitations in appearance.

“I think Quang Hai went to Japan, Korea can’t even kick, let alone go to Europe. Quang Hai has limited physical strength, being small like that makes it difficult to play football in Europe. For example, they encroached on a football player. If you fall, how do you kick?”former midfielder Phan Van Tai Em pointed out the weakness of Quang Hai.

There used to be a statistic that the average height in East Asian countries such as Korea, Japan, and China after 10 years increased from 5 to 7cm. In Southeast Asia, the average height of Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore increased by 3-4 cm. Vietnam only increased 1 cm. That is a number worth paying attention to when talking about the general picture for Vietnamese players compared to the continent.

The above story is a huge barrier for Vietnamese players in particular and Southeast Asia in general to go abroad. Further is the ambition to become a continental football power to think about tickets to the World Cup in the future.

For example, three typical talents of Southeast Asia in the past 10 years are all very short in height. According to soccerway, Chanathip is 1m58, Cong Phuong is 1m68 and Quang Hai is 1m69. That’s definitely too low a spec compared to the players in Korea and Japan.

If you only have technical and tactical vision, but your body is low and your physical strength is weak, it will be difficult for players to develop their talents in a comprehensive way, it is difficult to play football in Europe. Because in the modern football environment, the common prism is that the player has to run a lot, collide constantly.

It can be said that it is time for Vietnamese football to think further about the comprehensive development of young players, not only in football skills classes but also in sports nutrition. As coach Jeonbuk Hyundai said, it is necessary to improve the body of Vietnamese players in the next 3 years. This is a strategic problem of the whole football background, and the starting point is from academies, training centers, clubs…