Looking at Thailand with its new captain…
The 2024 Asian Cup is witnessing an impressive performance from the Thai national team. After winning all 3 points against Kyrgyzstan, the “War Elephants” continued to hold strong opponent Oman, thereby holding a great advantage for the ticket to continue to the round of 16. The recent victory bears the mark of new captain Masatada Ishii, who has only had more than a month of officially leading the national team of the land of the golden pagoda.
Looking at the performance of the Thai national team in the past two matches, it can be seen that coach Masatada Ishii has breathed life into the players with a relatively diverse playing style. Depending on each match, the Japanese strategist chooses a different approach as appropriate. “War Elephant” attacks with all its might against Kyrgyzstan and is ready to defend closely when facing strong opponent, Oman. All of the 56-year-old teacher’s calculations were maximally effective.
Coach Masatada Ishii made his mark on the Thailand national team in a short time.
The Thai national team under coach Masatada Ishii has similar trends to the Vietnamese national team under previous coach Park Hang-seo. They did not control the ball too much, with Oman at 30%, making 267 passes and against Kyrgyzstan at 45%. However, the effectiveness comes from extremely fast status transition situations that cause high damage to opponents.
More commendable, coach Masatada Ishii has only officially taken over the hot seat of “War Elephants” for more than a month, with 1 friendly match and 2 official matches. He also encountered many obstacles before the Asian Cup when he only had about 15 days to prepare, along with the absence of many pillars such as Chanathip Songkrasin, Teerasil Dangda due to injury and Ekanit Panya refused to play for the national team because he wanted to practice. Center for the club in the J-League. However, overcoming everything, the Japanese strategist made all fans look at him with admiration.
…think about coach Troussier
In contrast to Mr. Masatada Ishii, coach Philippe Troussier has had a rather long time, more than 9 months, taking over the hot seat at the Vietnam national team, but everything he has done is disappointing most fans. Losing to Indonesia, an opponent 52 places worse than the Golden Star Warriors on the FIFA rankings and having never won against us for nearly 8 years, has significantly reduced the fans’ confidence.
What fans see is not only the results, but also the question marks about the gameplay and the people used by the “White Witch”. Talking about this, boss Doan Nguyen Duc of HAGL Club commented: “Football has wins and losses, but losing to Indonesia and being eliminated early, coach Troussier certainly did not meet the expectations of Vietnamese fans. The loss to Indonesia was not only disappointing in terms of results, but the most worrying thing was the way they lost and the incorrect use of people, many good players had to be on the bench. I have never seen Vietnam play against Indonesia and be so inferior. It’s so deadlocked, there’s no way to win, to be fair.
We have a playing style that is not as good as theirs, lacking cohesion, lacking attack ideas, weaker resistance than them, not as brave as them due to leaving the best players like Hung Dung, Ho Tan Tai, Van Thanh, Van Toan and Duy Manh sit on the bench.”
Coach Philippe Troussier struggles with Vietnamese football.
Meanwhile, expert Vu Manh Hai also criticized: “Coach Troussier misjudged his student’s abilities. He has high expectations for young players, promoting them above his seniors. In fact, despite their efforts, these players do not know how to distribute their strength and cannot show their best abilities when facing mischievous opponents. Perhaps coach Troussier evaluates the level of today’s young Vietnamese players to be on par with the generations of Nguyen Quang Hai and Nguyen Hoang Duc. But such an assessment is wrong.”
Having said that, we also need to look back. The fact that Coach Philippe Troussier has set too many ambitions for comprehensive reform in the Vietnam National Team is causing him to make things difficult for himself.. Because, internally, football in the S-shaped strip of land still has many problems, from the club to the national championship and even human factors. With those things, the “White Witch” is almost taking a risk with a gamble that is almost inevitable. This will be the time when the French strategist and the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) need to thoroughly look back at what is going on and find the optimal solution in the near future.