Silent Lonesome Man

Four goals. It was the last thing we saw from Vietnam as the game in Melbourne went off. Australia was not at the best of their organisation, due to its manager Graham Arnold was hit with COVID-19, and several key players could not board fly on time due to blizzard, for instance Aziz Behich, who was stuck in Giresun and could not return from his ancestral country Turkey to Australia. Without the full 100% strength and poor perpetration of the Socceroos, yet it was so devastating, Australia demolished Vietnam 4-0. This result was so hard to swallow. Even though everyone generally agreed that Australia would beat Vietnam due to the disparity of the strength, that result was so unbelievable since Australia was at the poorest situation. But what made it so painful to see was, the loss confirmed Vietnam the first team to be eliminated from the FIFA World Cup qualification in the Asian third round. The only thing Vietnamese could feel happy, well, would be the WCQ served as a perpetration fo...

Australia. A European entity that is on the Asian football family. It sounds strange but it is. When joining the AFC in 2006, the country has just begun to learn to build a concrete football culture, something it lacked entirely. And now, when its football is just enjoying decent growth, it is facing an uphill task of winning all remaining four games, in order to survive. But while Australia's task is really difficult, Vietnam is even in a greater issue: to win at least the first points ever in the qualification. Being the least experienced in this round alone sucks, but, pointless after six games is hardly acceptable. Now, beating Australia is the only way to keep Vietnam on track, which, in reality, more like a fiction than reality. Even a crisis-hit Chinese side still obtained three points from Vietnam, then leave alone how could Vietnam ever win a game. It's so questionable. This dark reality is also intermingled with another issue related to the upcoming trip: a hostile di...

When Thailand lost 1-3 to the UAE and 0-4 to Iraq away in the latest 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification, it was seen as a dent. Thailand was the only country from Southeast Asia to be there, though, to be frank, if you count member from the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF), you may also think of Australia, the country where I have some connection over, due to my relatives studied in Down Under and some of my neighbours were students in here. But Australia and Thailand are totally two opposite polar. Australia has succeeded in establishing a name among Asia's mightiest, and a frequent World Cup participant since 2006, the year they joined the AFC. By contrast, Thailand has succeeded only in giving itself a supremacy in Southeast Asia - in fact, Thailand was, for a long time, the only Southeast Asian state to reach the final phase of World Cup qualifiers in Asia. Indonesia was the only World Cup participant there from Southeast Asia, though as a Dutch autonomous colony, it didn't p...

When Ricardo "El Tigre" Gareca first appointed as coach of the Peru national football team, the Peruvians had just entered their 33rd years without a World Cup. The dissatisfaction was high among the national team because they were regarded by their own countrymen as nothing but a bunch of pop stars with no discipline and full of scandals. It was real. And no one imagined just a few years, a villain would turn into a hero. Not so easy Back in 2010, the Uruguayan Armenian manager Sergio Markarián was appointed as coach of Peru following the country disastrous campaign in the 2010 World Cup qualification, where Peru finished bottom with only three victories, despite not losing at home to Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. In fact, the national team of Peru was so bad for some points, the media in the country named this team "Los hijos de Burga" (sons of Burga), to refer to Manuel Burga Seoane, President of the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) from 2002 to 2014. The ange...

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 profe...

This was one of the many images captured from the Mỹ Đình National Stadium, the largest sporting facility in entire Vietnam. You may see this was a football (or soccer) action on the field, yes, the match between Vietnam and Australia during the campaign for Qatar 2022. But, if you keep your eyes closer to the field, you may have to doubt this. I'm talking about Vietnam's widespread state corruption. The Mỹ Đình facilities were built in 2001 as an attempt to refurbish Vietnam's image on its path of economic reintegration following decades of isolation and international sanctions due to the war in Cambodia. And why it was built? Simply, for the 2003 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, by that time the largest sporting event had ever been hosted in the country. There were hopes that Vietnam could be guaranteed a special place for future international competitions in case of any football games scheduled here. The 2003 SEA Games finally broke the barrier and gave the Vietnamese people...

The first match was over. Well, it was not so unexpected for everyone watching. A game that Vietnam lost. Yes, a 1-3 defeat. The only positive thing, surprisingly, was Vietnam being the first team from Southeast Asia to take the lead against Saudi Arabia... in Saudi soil, never happened before in the past of Saudi Arabia when facing Southeast Asian teams in Asian Cup or World Cup qualifications. And Vietnam led for the entire first half and early 10 minutes of the second one. For a country that is struggling to combat the deadly third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, this is the only joy we have. Unfortunately, the next game doesn't seem to be so bright either - it'll be against Australia, an opponent expected to be an even harder nut than Saudi Arabia. Yes, we have been talked about how Vietnam's youth teams played against Australia's counterparts. The edge belongs to the Aussies, still, even though compared to the other major Asian powers, it was slight. And many Vie...