Victory or defeat depends on... foreign coaches

In the last three decades at the national team levels, we have become familiar with the saying: "Success or failure lies with the foreign coach." History reveals that local coaches have almost never succeeded, even to a moderate extent.

At the club level, it’s similar—still "living under the shadow of foreign players," where domestic players, although the majority, do not hold the decisive influence.

All this data shows that Vietnamese football specifically, and football in Southeast Asia’s less developed regions generally, must achieve harmony between local talent and foreign input to develop further. Stars, whether in the coaching booth or on the pitch, seldom come to Southeast Asia after gaining fame since it is considered a step down in their careers. This is a fact. Being a star doesn’t guarantee success; often, it can be quite the opposite.

Harry Kewell, one of the icons of the English Premier League and Australia’s national team during his playing days, is certainly among the most famous coaches in history to have come to work in the V-League. At the regional level, Kewell probably ranks just slightly below Patrick Kluivert (the current head coach of Indonesia’s national team) in terms of talent and reputation. Of course, being a star player and being a coach are two very different categories.

In the past, Southeast Asian football welcomed many world-renowned coaches, such as Peter Reid and Bryan Robson (England) with Thailand’s national team; Sven-Goran Erikson (Sweden) with the Philippines; and even Falko Goetz (Germany), who coached Vietnam’s national teams... All of them had previously managed famous clubs or national teams and achieved some success. However, none of them won titles upon arriving in Southeast Asia.

Coaches like Henrique Calisto, Park Hang Seo, and now Kim Sang Sik have been fortunate to earn titles because they were not very famous and had hardly established their reputations before coming to Vietnam. They explored ways to adapt and recognized this as a land for starting and building their careers, not just to preach football. That made the difference.