A memoir of Vietnam's in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification final round - Matchday 1 and 2

So, the two first matchdays for Vietnam ended, with no surprise to be made. Vietnam lost to Saudi Arabia away, then to Australia at home. With a lot of things to speak about, many Vietnamese are emotional. In my eyes, Vietnam had shown a surprisingly good form than initial expectation, even when concerns remain.

A good show in the Land of Two Mosques

Saudi Arabia has replaced the Turkish Ottoman Empire as the sole custodian of the Two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad was born and died, since 1922. The Two Holy Cities alone provide Saudi Arabia wealth and power, adding with oil discovered in the Kingdom in 1936. However, Saudi Arabia was insignificant in Asian football until they began to divest the wealth for the World Cup and Asian Cup goals since the 1980s. Of course, Asian football was largely semi-professional, some were even amateur - Saudi Arabia got the benefits from a largely Asian football state very quickly. It was also the spearhead of the full professionalization of football in Asia, even faster than Japan and in pair with South Korea.

So when Vietnam played against Saudi Arabia, Vietnam had to deal with a professionalized, well-trained Saudi team. Yet, Saudi Arabia rarely sends players abroad, still, as I remember from an article by the Guardians written in 2002, interviewing Saudi legend Sami Al-Jaber. Sami was one of the first Saudis to seek professional football in Europe, playing for Wolverhampton, but was ruined by his club Al-Hilal. After Saudi Arabia's early elimination from the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Sami Al-Jaber had criticised the Saudi Football Federation for the protectionist policy as described by Sami as "flawed".

Sami Al-Jaber gathered the respect of outsiders for his wisdom and willingness to bring Saudi football flavour to the world, but the royal dynasty of Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be interested in Al-Jaber's plea. It has currently relaxed the protectionist policy, but with a limited quota. Some Saudi players in the modern squad facing Vietnam on 2 September: Fahad Al-Muwallad and Salem Al-Dawsari, used to play in Spain for Villareal and Levante. Another player on the reserve of Saudi Arabia was a youth player in Eredivisie's Vitesse, the Somali-born Mukhtar Ali - not in the Saudi squad that faced Vietnam in Riyadh. Mukhtar was a youth international of England but later came to play for Saudi Arabia, notably in the 2020 Summer Olympics where Saudi Arabia finished bottom with three losses.

Saudi Arabia's manager was a no-stranger, Hervé Renard, who began his coaching career transition by venturing to Vietnam for Nam Định in 2003. It was quite a long, long time, so his knowledge of Vietnamese football was little. But the time in Vietnam, though short, was important for him to build his own reputation in Africa, where he became the first coach to win two African titles with two different national teams (Zambia and Ivory Coast), as well as guided Morocco, an Arab fellow of Saudi Arabia, to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Then, Vietnam played in Mrsool Park, officially the King Saud University Stadium. The name "Mrsool" came after the Saudi delivery company Mrsool signed a contract to make the stadium bearing its namesake. Like the majority of Saudi stadiums, it was a recently built one, modern, though lacking Qatar's stadiums' air conditions. The hot climate in Saudi Arabia represents a unique challenge, yes, Vietnam does have that kind of climate, but Vietnam's climate is hot and humid, not arid.

Against such an opponent, I was not expecting so high from the game. Yet, Vietnam proved to be a stubborn opponent, with Nguyễn Quang Hải scored in the 3' at the expense of Saudi fans. I could not describe the happiness, but it turned to be Vietnam's only goal after the two first matchdays. The second half saw Vietnam lost control after a brutal red card from the Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev. Saudi Arabia, which had failed to capitalise on its superior attacking performance prior, was relieved when the disciplined performance of Vietnam was shaken.

3-1.

It was a result that not surprising anybody. The thing is, however, was Vietnam being a really resolute team in need. It was unlucky when Vietnam's defender got a handball, but I respected the decision since it was in Vietnam's home penalty area, a red card was fairly deserved. What the Saudi coach Renard stated aftermath, was a different one. For the first time, he acknowledged he had to face a highly organised opponent that gave Saudi Arabia the first goal conceded in 2021.

Unlucky or robbed?

But the game against Australia would go on to reignite the issues about referees.

Vietnam, returning home following the loss to Saudi Arabia, looked less affected by the defeat, probably because of the status as being an underdog. Australia came to Hanoi facing Vietnam for the first time in history. Australia has some football memories in Vietnam, back in 1967 when the Vietnam War was happening. It was there, the nickname "Socceroos" to describe Australia, was born.

Australia again came with another memory. For the Aussies, good old, good old day. For the Vietnamese, yet again feeling discriminated.

The game occurred in a horrible pitch that was known by the Aussies as a "cow paddock". It was the only thing Vietnamese fans truly take it hard, as most Vietnamese did acknowledge the pitch problems that was widespread across Vietnam. The others? I don't see this coming.

Not just a horrible landmass saw in the Mỹ Đình National Stadium, the largest football facility in Vietnam, it was also about the referee. The match saw Vietnam totally dominated by the Australians by possession, yet Vietnam shot over 11 times, above Australia's 6. In 28', a shot from Nguyễn Phong Hồng Duy hit the arm of Rhyan Grant, but the referee was convinced that Grant was not intentional in the movement, and the use of VAR became a waste for many Vietnamese supporters. Painfully for Vietnam, having lost the penalty, it was Grant who, on Australia's only direct shot throughout the match, turned hero for the Socceroos with a header to give Australia a gritty 1-0 win.

Coach Park Hang-seo, after the loss, lamented that Australian players only had muscular bodies, while skills aren't better than the Vietnamese counterparts; but I found it was only a half-truth. Indeed, the Korean coach was right that Australian players aren't that capable of contriving the ball due to their height and physical-based performance, but there are other aspects that were never seen in previous qualifications of Australia but now revealing. The Aussies were far more manipulative and cunning than the Saudis in their 1-0 win. Unlike the offensive-minded but not so smart Saudi side, the Aussies studied very carefully about Vietnam's offside trap and Vietnam's diamond shape in defence, thus never intended to move beyond until it was clear that the ball was seen to the right man. Australia had more than three times succeeded in breaking Vietnam's offside trap, something the Saudis could not. When it got the goal, the Australians didn't plan to make further attacks to keep the organisation, still, Mitchell Duke was able to score a goal, before getting ruled offside. The offside situation of Duke was more about the personal fault of Duke for moving too early instead of an active offside trap.

In some aspects, the Australians appeared to have grown from previous qualifiers, where the Oz made frequent mistakes that almost lost its place in the FIFA World Cup, twice. They were better prepared this time, indicated with Australia gaining the wins against Jordan and Kuwait - both were Australia's kryptonite before the qualifiers started. Unsurprisingly, once Australia was able to break through its curses, we knew what to expect.

Yet, the game also came with a feeling of open robbery. The Australian side didn't perform at its best, and Rhyan Grant's handball should have come with a penalty. But the Qatari referee rejected the claim. Yet a number of similar Grant-like handballs followed up, notably in the game between Russia and Malta, won by the Russians 2-0, saw Daler Kuzyayev shot the ball directly to the hand of Ryan Camenzuli. Camenzuli's handball drew similarities to Grant, the Turkish referee awarded Russia a clear penalty. This also triggered a sentiment that Vietnam was unfairly cast as an outsider, in which the game between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia that saw a red card against Vietnam unanimously became the target of unfair treatment by the AFC as Australia's somewhat coincidental handball was ignored. An attempt to concern about refereeing by the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) was dismissed by the AFC.

Bad behaviours everywhere

Yet Vietnamese football fans left a horrible reputation which might have turned away some of the neutral personnel.

Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing rates of internet users in the world and alone in Asia, Vietnamese users are omnipresent on almost every website. This, in turn, fueled a highly chauvinistic online community that can rival Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian or Moroccan internet users - also renowned for chauvinism. Already in football alone, the Vietnamese supporters match up with the sentiment of the Turks, Indonesians and the Moroccans, even though Vietnam's football status is very dismal.

No one understands better than those referees who used to take part in Vietnam's games. With the advancement of Google Translate, users can search for various languages. The Vietnamese must have been the most erring people: they are quick to adopt this, and constantly harass referees' Facebook channels when the results did not come into their wishes. Alone in the Facebook page of Iraqi referee Ali Sabah, who officiated the match between the UAE and Vietnam in the second round, after he refused to give Vietnam a penalty, Vietnamese fans ran riot, attacking his page in both English, Vietnamese and even Arabic, forcing the poor referee to deactivate for a few weeks. He later criticised the Vietnamese authorities for not monitoring the attitudes of Vietnamese supporters. More recently, after the match between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, in which the penalty decision was made, the Vietnamese fans once again ran riot, blowing the Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev's page. Lucky for him, Facebook is not his main - it is Facebook's Russian equivalent VKontakte that he made his posts most. The only other poor referee, Qatar's Abdulrahman Al-Jassim, didn't have to see the flood of Vietnamese nationalists, largely because of a dissuading plea from some celebrities to spare the ref and to respect the normal populace.

Such incidents don't come out as a surprise: Vietnam has been rated as among one of the worst nations in the world in terms of online behaviour, for times it was among the top 5... of the worst. Vietnamese supporters' highly xenophobic demonstration could only dent the image of Vietnam further.

It's good to love football and love your team, but when you make it too toxic, you can turn even the neutral people to hate you even more. Vietnamese fans need to learn how to control their tempers before making talks.

When injuries merged with the suspension and crisis

The Vietnamese team had been plagued with widespread injuries. This was something the Korean manager Park Hang-seo worried about most. It came in the place badly needed, at the dismay of the Korean boss: defence. Defence is the most important pillar of the Korean coach in building the Vietnamese team, his stellar defence was responsible for Vietnam not losing so many goals - something the previous generations often let happen.

So far, Vietnam only conceded a total of three in every football match, the first to do so was Iraq and later the UAE, with Vietnam losing 2-3 each. But injuries plagued the Vietnamese team to a point even some of Vietnam's most promising names like Bùi Tiến Dũng, Trần Đình Trọng and Đoàn Văn Hậu had to leave the camp. Many believed that Park Hang-seo's effective, but harsh methods, contributed to the plague. He was harsh in turning every player to become somewhat ideal defenders, with a lot of strength and stamina training programs, and even repeated duel-for-duel tests. It was accredited for helping Vietnamese players to improve their stamina not seen in the past generations but made them prone to injuries.

Yet when Vietnamese players need more experience, the V-League 2021 season was cancelled (state media stating "suspended" out of fears of losing sponsors), leaving many Vietnamese players within their sluggish professional league to move home and work other businesses outside. The VFF and VPF tried to solve the problems, but infighting and disagreements left them unable to provide a concrete move. This could be blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic, the fourth wave that left 15,000 deaths and nearly 630,000 infects, the worst wave in Vietnam currently; the poor planning also contributed to Vietnam's low vaccination rate, surpassed only by Myanmar.

I can consider the pandemic unveiled the nasty state of corruption that VPF and VFF have been, how the Communist Party mishandled, and how football clubs across Vietnam are trying to find money to keep their teams afloat amidst the crisis. Why the league has to be suspended for six months before announcing the cancellation, remain to be questioned. In every professional league I heard, it took three months for them before returning, albeit with no spectator. Is the Vietnamese football league a professional one, or is it just a semi-professional under the professional mask?

Anyway, with the way how Vietnamese football team ran before the WCQ, it is no secret that the Vietnamese perpetration could not bear the needed results: players lacking immediate experience and energy they should have in the domestic league, widespread corruption within the federation, government's mismanagement during the coronavirus pandemic, also somewhat Mr Park's unorthodox coaching style, is to be discussed.

The upcoming hot October

October promised to be even hotter than September, because of Vietnam's precarious situation.

The "hot" October is my reference to Vietnam's away fixtures against China and Oman. China is designated as the "home" team against Vietnam, but the game will be scheduled in the United Arab Emirates' Sharjah. All games in October are in the two Gulf nations.

Considering the climate in the Gulf is arid every year, with some rainfalls on the sea coasts, it'll not be a surprise for Vietnam to face such tricky tests. Will Vietnam gain the win a prospect to be seen not by a day but by weeks, maybe months.

China has had a history of dominating Vietnam in football since Vietnam's economic reintegration. All seven games Vietnam met China ended with Chinese victories, thus Chinese media is very confident, though its optimistic attitude has no longer come fervently. What made Chinese media less optimistic than before was the Team Dragons' bottom place position, no goal and no point, due to losses to Australia and Japan. By contrast, pointless Vietnam had a goal to speak out, hence in fifth place. The game is now a do-or-die battle, in which either has to win or to settle a draw - as described by former 2002 World Cup's debutant Li Tie, now coach of China. It should be noted that China is in the stagnation of football development, as the Chinese lack greater achievements since the 2010s. On the other side, Vietnamese football has witnessed a massive rise in credits to the growing youth development programs. Historical issues against China have also fueled Vietnamese desires in this encounter.

Yet facing Oman may also represent a far greater danger than China. Oman is currently in third, a suitable place for a playoff spot. Oman has the credits by successfully overcome a highly inflexible, rigid Japanese side in Suita 1-0, which greatly derailed Japanese morales. Oman was unfortunate to lose to Saudi Arabia, its fellow Gulf rival, but not without creating plenty of opportunities. Unsurprisingly, Oman's coach Branko Ivanković openly underestimated Australia and Vietnam, Oman's upcoming opponents in October, underlined that Oman must gain all six. From what I read in Australia, Graham Arnold didn't take it lightly, he ordered the players to be serious about their Omani opponents, before going to Japan for the encounter against the Japanese. What about Vietnam? I don't know, but I am aware that the Vietnamese officials are also very serious.

Hope... yet to fade

"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win."

The author of this quote is no other than Zhuge Liang, one of China's greatest military philosophists. Kong Ming/Zhuge Liang, once a servant to the Shu Han resurrectionist dynasty in the Three Kingdoms fighting Cao Cao's Wei and Sun Jian's Wu. Vietnam, as a part of the Sinosphere order, must be familiar to him and the Three Kingdoms that has reached popularity beyond the Sinic world.

Of course, this means Vietnam must be on the ready mode, a mode that can help Vietnam to win even before fighting. Two early defeats Vietnam suffered must be showing another image of this side, yet this Vietnam team didn't appear to be afraid, much to the disbelief of opponents. Of course, not to mention how poorly prepared Vietnam was before the Final Round, the team's fighting spirits never disappeared.

This gave some hopes as Vietnam will travel to the UAE and Oman for October's fixtures. If only Vietnam is given more time and space to prepare and build a team, not to be plagued by injuries. The necessary thing is, Vietnam needs someone who's wise and knowledgeable. They have a great coach, but is he wise?

I'd say, Mr Park is skilled, is well-educated. He's a wise man. But only a wise coach alone isn't enough. A wise staff is needed to fill the hole. Vietnam has wise players, wise coaches, but not wise backups. It needs more.

The campaign was not over, and with Vietnam being disregarded, there are chances for Vietnam to u-turn everything. It's time for Vietnam to re-look over the whole system, if Vietnam wants to have any opportunity for a surprise comeback.