Former Jeonbuk Manager Kim Sang-sik Takes the Helm of Vietnam National Team

After taking time away, former Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors manager Kim Sang-sik returns to the magerial game, taking the helm of the Vietnam National Side on a two-year contract. Matthew Binns spoke with VN Express writer Xuan Binh about the expectations facing Kim and what he will need to do to rally the supporters behind him.

Matthew Binns: What has been the general reaction to Kim Sang-sik's appointment in Vietnam?

Xuan Binh: You know, at the moment, fans' belief in our national team has been the worst since before Park Hang-seo’s tenure. We know we don’t have any chances to go to the third round of this World Cup qualifying. We also just had the worst results in our history in the Asian Cup. We lost about 20 positions in the FIFA ranking. I haven’t seen such bad results since 2017.

I think the majority of Vietnam fans agreed with VFF appointing an Asian coach because we think a European coach like Philippe Troussier did not understand our players and culture, which led to our bad results under his reign. Also, our local coaches haven’t had any achievements when managing the national team. It’s easy to understand why VFF went for Kim because he used to be a Korean international under Park, and he is represented by the same agent company as Park.

To sum up, although we weren’t excited about the appointment, we mostly didn’t oppose this. It might be because we have nothing to lose now.

M: Kim's time in Jeonbuk came to a bit of a disappointing end. How much of that do you think has been communicated to fans? Are they aware of his track record?

B: You know Vietnamese love football, and our media, both mainstream and social, are pretty strong. So, we all tried to bring as much information as possible for our readers.

When Korean newspapers reported the news, they wrote that Kim’s last season at Jeonbuk wasn’t a success. Our newspapers reported the same thing, so many fans did know about his record in the last season. And that may affect our fans' expectations. However, I’m sure most of us don’t care much about his past record. Because we used to underrate Park, and clearly, we were wrong to do that.

M: Kim becomes the second Korean coach of the Vietnamese team after Park Hang-seo. Park had a quite positive reputation while at the helm, and Kim has reportedly spoken to him before taking this job. Therefore, what elements of Park's tenure would you like Kim to bring back to this squad?

B: Actually, Kim confirmed in his first press conference on Monday that he spoke to Park a lot about his new job. And he heard many stories and pieces of advice from him. What we would like to see is the compactness of our defense, which made Park’s team difficult to beat. Our team under Troussier was easily attacked. We conceded 0.9 goals per game under Park, and 1.7 goals under Troussier. The other stats might be worse than that.

M: What are the biggest areas Kim and his coaching staff will have to target immediately if they are to improve this side in the supporters' eyes?

In the last question, I talked about him strengthening our defense. But we always wanted to be an attacking team. We just haven’t had the ability to do that.

You know, because we lack good attacking players. In our league, all clubs use foreign players as strikers, leading to our local strikers limiting their playing time and experience in professional football. Well, that’s if our league can be called professional.

But our attacking performance under Troussier was so bad. We didn’t create any real chances when playing against teams of the same level or a little above us. We scored 0.8 goals per game under Troussier, compared to 1.6 goals per game with Park.

To be clear, we will play against Iraq away in June, which is a difficult game to play and if we win or at least create many chances in that game, our fans will love him for sure.

[READ: What can Vietnam fans expect from Kim Sang-sik?]

M: The manager has already attended his first game, watching HAGL's 1-0 win over The Cong. Are there any particular teams and players fans will hope he attends as he starts forming his team?

B: I think he will soon watch all of our clubs and players because our league is not that big, and the majority of clubs are located 4 or 5 hours' drive from Hanoi. Some fans joked that he would rethink about accepting the job after watching the game you mentioned. It’s not a good game, even for our league standard.

We all want to know how our national team squad would change under Kim's tenure. Many of our golden generation players have been out of form for a long time, due to injuries or other reasons, like Nguyễn Quang Hải, Đỗ Hùng Dũng, Nguyễn Tiến Linh, Hồ Tấn Tài, or Đoàn Văn Hậu. So we want to know how they play, if they play for Kim.

Also, Troussier loved to use some young players like Nguyễn Thái Sơn, Võ Minh Trọng, or Phan Tuấn Tài. We also want to know their role in the team under the new coach.

M: The manager has signed for two seasons. What are the expectations for him to meet in this time?

B: According to our sources, in the contract between VFF and Kim, the team needs to reach at least the semifinals of the 2024 AFF Cup and 2025 SEA Games and qualify for the 2026 U23 Asian Cup. He manages both the national team and U23 team, and his contract will be reviewed in stages based on the results of the teams.

I’d say these goals are achievable because we’ve done that for the last 6 years. But that might just be VFF’s ambition. Our fans probably want a little more than that. That would be qualifying for the finals of the AFF Cup and SEA Games and reaching the knockout stage of the 2026 U23 Asian Cup again. Any achievement beyond that will be a massive success, no doubt.