According to Tran Anh Tu, VFF vice president, VFF will spend two months looking for a foreign coach, or it will appoint an acting coach in June during FIFA Days.

Local media outlets reported that VFF has given priority to Asian candidates, particularly those from Japan and the Republic of Korea who have a footballing philosophy similar to Vietnam.

In June, Vietnam will play the last two Group F matches of the second Asian qualifying round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. They will take on the Philippines in a home match on June 6 and Iraq in an away match on June 11.

If VFF can’t find any suitable foreign coach, it will then appoint an interim coach – a similar case in 2017, when Mai Duc Chung, the then chief coach of the national women’s team, was tasked with taking the helm.

Meanwhile, VFF has decided to pick Hoang Anh Tuan, an experienced coach of the national junior teams, as the caretaker of Vietnam’s U23s to prepare for the 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U23 Asian Cup finals.

Vietnam will play in Group D alongside Uzbekistan, Kuwait, and Malaysia in the 2024 AFC U23 Asian Cup finals slated for April 15 to May 3 in Qatar.

The biennial international championship organised by the AFC will act as qualifiers for the 2024 Summer Olympics men’s football tournament. The top three teams from the competition will go on to qualify for the Olympics in France as the AFC representatives.

VOV