The two strangely opposing halves of the Vietnamese team: The audience had a heart attack

Why did the Vietnamese team deadlock in the first half?

The dark half of the picture came in the first 45 minutes, before Hai Long scored the opening goal. During this time, the Vietnamese team played ineffectively, without beautiful short coordination pieces. Instead, coach Kim Sang-sik’s students made many, many passes across the line. The reason is that the Korean strategist realized the weakness of the Laos team’s defense and wanted the Vietnamese team to fully exploit it. He shared in the post-match press conference: “Laos plays with a deep defense and we need to find a way to break this. I want players to penetrate into the space behind the defense.”

Hoang Duc and his teammates followed the strategy given by coach Kim Sang-sik. The ball was sent out to both sides relatively evenly for Truong Tien Anh and Khuat Van Khang to step forward and occupy the space. The duo of players from Viettel Sports Club appeared many times at the bottom of the touchline to pose a danger to the opponent’s goal. They in turn made 3 and 5 passes to create opportunities for their teammates.

But on the other side of the front line, coach Ha Hyeok-jun is not a novice. He arranged for his students to closely guard the two target strikers of the Vietnamese team, Tien Linh and Vi Hao. Therefore, this couple was not able to finish comfortably in the first half. Tien Linh also revealed that the defender of the Laos team did everything to block him, including using tricks like pulling on his shirt.

In general, most of the Vietnamese team’s opportunities in the first half only came from long shots or from fixed situations. And that was not enough to penetrate the Laos team’s net.

How does coach Kim Sang-sik help the Vietnamese team ‘change color’?

To be fair, the Vietnamese team did not play badly in the first half, it was just that the Laos team was well prepared and defended well, preventing coach Kim Sang-sik’s attempt to exploit the space behind the defense. proposed. But the captain of the Vietnamese team did not sit still. From the end of the first half, he allowed Hai Long to move more freely across the field, playing as an attacking midfielder. But it wasn’t until the 58th minute that this plan became effective. The two central defenders of the Lao team were too focused on Tien Linh and completely forgot about Hai Long, creating conditions for the Hanoi Club midfielder to score. And it is also necessary to praise Bui Tien Dung’s very good passing.

Immediately after scoring, Hai Long was taken off, but that was not a wrong decision by coach Kim Sang-sik. With the introduction of Tuan Hai, Quang Hai, Van Toan and previously Van Vi, the Vietnamese team showed a completely different face, changing from a long kicking style to a short, well-coordinated playing style.

Specifically, Van Vi does not stick to the sideline as much as Van Khang but moves deeper into the middle armpit to be ready to coordinate or support pressing from the front line. Quang Hai and Van Toan also supported Hoang Duc a lot in deploying the ball, always actively pressing. At this time, Tien Linh also actively retreated deeper, showing his strengths as a wall, distributing the ball and opening up a lot of space for Van Toan and Tuan Hai. This was clearly shown in the situation where Quang Hai assisted Van Toan to score. At the end of the match, Tien Linh also had a smart pass to Van Toan, but the striker of Nam Dinh Club hit the opponent’s goalkeeper’s foot.

Overall, the connectivity of the Vietnamese team in the second half was much better. This comes from the fact that Quang Hai has the ability to pass through the lines and poke holes better than Ngoc Tan, and has more experience playing on the team, so he connects with his teammates better. At the same time, when Van Vi stays inside, the Vietnamese team has an additional “bridge” to perform shooting situations, instead of constantly dropping the ball to the bottom of the line to stretch or cross the ball. Those connections created goals and many other opportunities. The number of good opportunities in the second half that the Vietnamese team had was double that of the first half (4 compared to 2).

Coach Kim Sang-sik said before the match: “During 10 days of training in Korea, the Vietnamese team has harvested many positive signals in terms of tactics and personnel.” The flexible changes he brought to this match show that the above statement is not empty talk. The Vietnamese team can still transform further. Because the kicking style that takes advantage of long balls in the first half will certainly be more effective in the future when the players have time to practice and improve. More importantly, the Vietnamese team still has a powerful “weapon” named Nguyen Xuan Son.

And when coach Kim Sang-sik perfects the tactical pieces, the picture with two opposing halves, light and dark in the match against the Laos team, can become a more perfect work, with only beautiful colors.