What challenges await Coach Gong Oh-kyun at the AFC U23 Championship?

On February 23, 2022, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) decided to choose Mr. Gong Oh-kyun to lead Vietnam U23 since the 31st SEA Games to replace Coach Park Hang-seo. This decision of the VFF is to help Mr. Park to focus on the Vietnam team as much as possible.

Thus, the 2022 AFC U23 Championship is the first tournament of Coach Gong Oh-kyun as the “captain” of U23 Vietnam. Certainly, the success of Mr. Park in the last few years will make Mr. Gong suffer a lot of pressure from the imprints that his “senior” has.

In nearly 5 years of being led by coach Park Hang-seo, U23 Vietnam has won the SEA Games gold medal twice, reached the final of the Asian U23 tournament, and reached the semi-finals of ASIAD once. Therefore, the expectation of Vietnamese football fans at the final round of the 2022 AFC U23 Championship is that Mr. Gong must at least help the team pass the group stage.

This is not an easy task, because U23 Vietnam is in Group C along with U23 Korea, U23 Thailand and U23 Malaysia. In this group, Korea U23 will almost certainly come out on top if they play in the right way. The other ticket is a competition between 3 representatives of Southeast Asia.

Among the 3 Southeast Asian representatives in Group C, Malaysia U23 is the lowest rated. Therefore, the opening match against U23 Thailand on June 2 will greatly affect the chances of U23 Vietnam to continue. If they want to raise their hopes of reaching the quarterfinals, coach Gong Oh-kyun and his students need to win.

In the final of men’s football at the 31st SEA Games, U23 Vietnam overcame Thailand U23 with a score of 1-0 to win the gold medal. However, compared to more than a week ago, the forces of both sides have quite a lot of disturbance, especially on the side of the golden temple country team when they have up to 9 players playing abroad and only keep 10 names attend the 31st Southeast Asian Games.

In addition to the change in the squad, the training benches of both sides are also completely different. While U23 Vietnam is led by coach Gong Oh-kyun, former player Worrawoot Srimaka will take the reins of Thailand U23 instead of Alexandre Polking. Therefore, the outcome of this duel will be more difficult to predict.

Besides the pressure from Mr. Park’s success, the element of real combat experience is something that Coach Gong Oh-kyun makes experts and fans doubtful. The Korean strategist has been in love with a coaching career since 2015. However, since then, he has mainly worked as an assistant coach for the Shenzhen club, U17, U18, U20, U23 Korea, and the Indonesian team. Seoul E-Land Club.

For 7 years, coach Gong Oh-kyun only had 2 short periods as a “captain” at U18 Korea (2016) and U23 Indonesia (2020) before coming to Vietnamese football.

The lack of direct directing experience will greatly affect the coaches’ ability to read the game and make tactical adjustments in each context. Most likely, Master Gong is no exception.

Coach Gong Oh-kyun’s third challenge is to find a solution to the “problem” of U23 Vietnam’s attack. At the friendly tournament Dubai Cup 2022 took place in March, U23 Vietnam failed to score after 2 matches.

At the 31st SEA Games, despite having added a 23-year-old striker, Nguyen Tien Linh, Vietnam U23 still only scored 8 goals in 6 matches. Among them, 2 players over 23 years old, Hung Dung and Tien Linh, contributed 4 goals.

In the 2022 Asian U23 tournament, coach Gong Oh-kyun called 5 strikers including Nham Manh Dung, Le Danh Trung (Viettel), Le Minh Binh (CAND), Nguyen Van Tung, Nguyen Van Truong (Hanoi FC). In which, the most expected name is Nham Manh Dung, who scored the only goal in the final of the 31st SEA Games men’s football. However, Manh Dung was not overrated.

The fourth difficulty of coach Gong Oh-kyun is that he does not apply the 3-5-2 tactical scheme of Mr. Park. Instead, the 47-year-old military leader for U23 Vietnam played with a 4-3-3 diagram. Most likely, that will make the players surprised, because in recent years, they have become too familiar with the 3 defender scheme.

Even world-class players, not everyone is quick to adapt to the brand new tactical scheme. In a recent friendly match with U23 UAE, U23 Vietnam played with a 4-3-3 formation and had to lose 0-3. It is possible that Mr. Gong “hid his cards” in this friendly match, but that cannot make Vietnamese fans feel secure before the 2022 Asian U23 tournament.

If coach Gong Oh-kyun cannot solve the above problems, U23 Vietnam will hardly pass the group stage of the 2022 AFC U23 Championship.