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German coach Falko Goetz offered an apology right after the game.
After the failure match, many readers exposed their deep disappointment. Football experts also raised their voices.
Coach Nguyen Thanh Vinh of Hoa Phat Hanoi FC said: “This loss should not be blamed on coach Falko Goetz. All Vietnam could provide him were weak defenders, slack midfielders, and not a single striker giving a full effort. This is the worst Vietnamese national team in many years.”
German coach Falko Goetz offered an apology right after the game: “I want to beg for an apology from our fans for finishing the tournament in such a way. I had thought ahead of the game that my players would try hard to win a bronze, but it was just a disappointment.”
At midnight, the U23 team’s apology was posted on the website of the VFF. The apology was sent from Tran Quoc Tuan, who manages the team.
He wrote: “Though the entire team exerted their effort but their unconvincing and unsuitable playing style in a decisive game brought about unexpected result and they did not attain their goal. This is a great lesson for Vietnam’s football. I hope that we would learn experience from this failure to strengthen and build up the U23 team”.
On Bong Da (Football) Newspaper, which was issued in the morning of November 22, VFF’s Chair Nguyen Trong Hy also apologized.
“The U23 Vietnam disappointed fans by unconvincing games. This failure is the pain of Vietnam’s football. On behalf of the VFF, we would like to take the responsibility for the failure. We will make self-criticism and learn from experience to find out shortcomings to report to the people in order to bring Vietnam’s football back to its appropriate position in the world arena,” Hy said.
However, many readers did not please with the apology from VFF, U23 team and coach Goetz. They said that the apology is “too familiar.”
“This apology is too familiar to a senior football fan like me. Anybody can offer that apology. You always say that you will learn experience from failure but nothing change. Frankly, football players now only think of money,” wrote a fan.
Many people asked to cut down investment in the men’s football team, which is the highest among all sports, to invest in other sports and in the women’s football squad.
“The VFF and businesses offer very huge bonus for the men’s team but the result is ashamed. Meanwhile, our women’s team is invested modestly and have no bonus but they have won many gold medals for the country,” another fan wrote.
Some readers suggested that VFF should use domestic coach rather than paying a lot of money to foreign coaches.
Vietnam’s football has never won a SEA Games title in the past 52 years.
Thanh Tu
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