The failure with Mr. Philippe Troussier is a reminder about monitoring and controlling coaches, right from non-professional issues such as speaking.
Not only failure on the field, the crisis of the Vietnamese team under coach Philippe Troussier started right in the press conference room, from the conflict between him and the media.
It is not natural that the appropriate criteria of “culture, curiosity and acceptance of differences” are factors that the Vietnam Football Federation puts first in the search for a replacement for Coach Troussier. The failure of the French teacher in Vietnam must be seen beyond the field.
The performance issue is only part of the crisis that the Vietnamese team and the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) must resolve after parting ways with Coach Troussier. It’s a media crisis. It has been a long time since the Vietnamese team has fallen into the current state, when the flow of opinions towards the team and the federation is mostly negative.
That heavy atmosphere was created in large part because of coach Troussier, not just about achievements. Mr. Troussier not only brought bad results on the grass. Off the field, he also created an oppressive atmosphere, with many shocking and surprising statements from his students to the media and fans.
The experience under Mr. Troussier shows a completely different style from Coach Park Hang Seo and, by extension, every other Asian coach. The French teacher has a fierce and straightforward personality and is not afraid to discuss delicate issues, such as when he said that 80% of his fans did not support him, and when he said that many people were waiting for VFF to be fired. You, like when you publicly said Hoang Duc could win the Golden Ball but was still not suitable for the team…
Coach Troussier’s statements in the last half year have always put him in a position of… confrontation with public opinion.
Statements like that can be found a lot under Coach Troussier and turn every press conference into a war and create a series of unnecessary controversies, negatively impacting himself, his students, and the media. media and fans alike.
Maybe that’s a way for Coach Troussier to pull criticism away from his students and professional stories. However, when the performance on the field is not good, that controversy becomes a catalyst that makes the criticism become more intense.
Those who are observant will realize that the Vietnamese team has long no longer favored coaches from Europe. Before Mr. Troussier, the last European teacher was Falko Goetz more than 10 years ago. Mr. Goetz also left in failure after more than half a year.
The huge difference in culture seems to be the common denominator of these coaches. That doesn’t just happen in Vietnam. In Mr. Park Hang Seo’s hometown, coach Jurgen Klinsmann also received countless criticism before being fired. Seasoned veteran Carlos Queiroz was also criticized for “spending too much time in Europe rather than focusing on working in Iran”.
That is probably the reason for the return of local coaches across Asia. In the group of 6 top teams on the continent, up to 5 teams use foreign coaches. Roberto Mancini in Saudi Arabia is the only foreign coach in this group.
Unlike the club level, the team is a collection of many talents from many teams in a short period of time, most of them have strong personalities, and are of special interest to them by a large fan community. Team training therefore needs to emphasize the element of cohesion in addition to regular training. Compared to foreign coaches, this is where domestic coaches can do better.
Of course, that does not mean that the Vietnamese team also needs a new domestic coach. That only shows cultural differences, and the issue of speech must be especially considered in VFF’s journey to find a new captain.
Specific regulations on speech, what must be said, what should be said or what should not be said are no longer strange in sports, typically the principles of information security and numbers in contracts.
“Maybe we need to review the way we behave with the coach. We are the owners, he is an employee, we have to adjust him. Choosing him is probably not wrong, but it seems we have no control over it.” “He has his weaknesses but we can’t supplement them in time.” Mr. Le Huy Khoa, who worked for the Vietnamese team as assistant – communication bridge – of coach Park Hang Seo, expressed his opinion.
Of course, the national team head coach needs to have the initiative in decisions and VFF should not interfere deeply. However, that does not mean that VFF gives the coach complete freedom as he wishes. There needs to be “soft” measures to control, for example right from speaking.
Speech orientation is also necessary in the context of increasingly developing social networks and journalism. Every careless statement will become a bait for social networks, stirring up unnecessary conflicts. This happened a lot under Mr. Troussier.
VFF certainly “paid tuition” quite expensively for this lesson under coach Troussier. Now is the time for them to show they have learned from this lesson.
