Vietnamese Futsal: A decade of development with big goals at World Cup

Hanoi (VNA) - One of the most impressive achievements of Vietnamese sports in 2021 was the journey of the futsal team to the FIFA Futsal World Cup for the second time. The players in red jerseys with yellow star once again entered the Round of 8.

To obtain the result, Vietnamese futsal has experienced more than a decade of development with big strides taken.

Long journey of Vietnamese futsal team

In 2009, Tran Anh Tu laid the first stone for the professional development of indoor football with the Vietnamese futsal team. At that time, Tu invited experienced Thai coach Pattaya Piamkum to help coach team Vietnam. Then, the Vietnamese futsal team had training with other experienced foreign coaches, such as Sergio Gargelli of Italy who once started with just a two-month contract.

Gargelli understood that in 2009, Vietnamese futsal was in its infant stages, but boasted potential for long-term development. Therefore, he decided to work for three more years in Vietnam to realise its dream of the World Cup.

“After the 2010 Asian Championship, Tu talked to me about the signing of a 3-year contract. At that time, the Uzbek Football Federation also invited me for a plan on their World Cup ambitions. But I knew that Vietnamese futsal needed me, so we really believed in the journey we were on,” said Gargelli.

Vietnamese futsal team attends FIFA Futsal World Cup in 2016 in Colombia for the first time (Photo: Getty Images)

During the three years, Gargelli Gargelli helped indoor football with two more experts to improve the quality of expertise in the smaller-field soccer game.

Among the foreign coach-experts was former Brazilian futsal player Jose Azevedo who had 40 years of experience and worked in 20 countries. He helped to coach to a well-developed first generation of futsal players under the first formal training programme in Vietnam. He had a significant influence on the next steps of the development of Vietnamese futsal and made an impression on the Vietnamese futsal team who attended the two World Cup editions.

Thanks to efforts from Gargelli and his associates, Vietnamese futsal took the second step to maximise its expertise and shape the indoor football programme in Vietnam, taking Spanish football as a model.

As a result, the Vietnamese futsal team realised its dream of World Cup with the accompaniment of Spanish coach Bruno Garcia Formoso and his assistants. The team entered the Round of 8 of the 2016 Futsal World Cup.

Vietnamese futsal team enters the Round of 8 of 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup (Photo: Getty Images)

The miracle of great results opened a wave of hiring of quality Spanish coaches in Vietnamese futsal and the whole Southeast Asia region. In 2018-2019 period, about 10 experts from Spain worked in Vietnam in different roles to improve the sport. Goalkeeping coach Antonio Garcia was an example, who trained Asian-class Ho Van Y at the Futsal World Cup last year.

An arduous road ahead

Despite impressive achievements in the last two Futsal World Cup editions, there remain many limitations for Vietnamese futsal to win tickets to the world’s biggest games.

Coach Miguel Rodrigo, who led the Vietnam futsal team and Thai Son Nam club in the 2017-2019 period, well understood the potential of indoor football in Vietnam.

As a member of the World Football Federation's expert team at the 2021 Futsal World Cup, he pointed out the limitations that need to be overcome toward success, even though Vietnamese futsal has been on a journey of more than a decade.

Rodrigo said the level of futsal coaches in Vietnam is still low, and futsal Vietnam needs more coaching courses at many levels. “It is important to have foreign experts,” he stressed.

Coach Miguel Rodrigo. (Photo: Getty Images)

Rodrigo commented on the Vietnamese futsal team’s performance at the two most recent World Cup editions. He said when you watch the matches carefully, it’s easy to see that the Vietnamese team played only defensively and could barely make active attacks.

He said that it is time for the Vietnamese futsal team to be bolder, not afraid to play offensively with strong teams, thereby learning more.

He underlined a need to have a professional tournament network like Thailand for Vietnamese futsal in order to upgrade its existing internal strength, through which the younger generation of futsal coaches and players will improve further.

He suggested Vietnamese futsal organisation consider exporting players, even though there are currently not many people qualified enough to play in Spain or Portugal.

"There will be many difficulties in bringing players abroad, but that's the best way to improve. From going abroad, your futsal mindset changes, and play improves because you have more understanding of other cultures, and other values in futsal,” said Rodrigo./.