According to Vietnamese media outlet Soha, former French coach of Chinese Super League's Zhejiang Greentown Troussier will replace South Korea's Park Hang-wook as the new coach of the Vietnam national team. The two sides have finalized a coaching contract of more than three years. Troussier had led the team to the World Cup in France as head coach of Japan. After his coaching contract with the Japanese national team ended, Troussier also came to China to start his coaching journey. He was the head coach of Zhejiang Greentown and Shenzhen. The coach from France is very good at developing young players. In recent years, the Vietnamese team has shown a good upward momentum. Many players went abroad to study and beat the Chinese team in the last 12 matches.
In addition to being the coach of the Vietnam national team and leading the team in international matches, Troussier will also consider the Vietnam national Olympic team and lead the Vietnam national Olympic team in the Asian Olympic qualifiers. The Vietnam Football Association (VFA) is clearly interested in Troussier's ability to develop young players, hoping that he will explore more promising young players to prepare the national team's talent pool. What is even more surprising is that Troussier, who doubles as Vietnam's national team and Olympic coach, is paid only 420,000 dollars a year. It is difficult for national soccer coaches to give birth as the Chinese Football Association cries poverty, but according to domestic media reports, the new coach's annual salary is around $1 million to $2 million. If calculated according to this exchange rate, the annual salary of the new coach will be more than 10 million dollars.
Personally, Troussier fully meets the selection criteria of the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The CFA wants to find a high-level coach who understands Asian soccer and has rich coaching experience to lead the national soccer team to the World Cup. Troussier has been coaching in Asian soccer for many years and has accumulated a wealth of coaching experience in developing young players. What's more, he also coached in the Chinese Super League and has a relative understanding of the technical characteristics of domestic players. However, the leaders of the Chinese Football Association do not like Troussier. In their opinion, the Chinese team can find a more capable coach than Troussier, but the reality is that high-level coaches, including Paulo Bento Queiroz, who have been coaching in Asia for many years, simply don't like the position of coach of the national soccer team and have refused the invitation by offering high salaries to the Chinese Football Association.
In contrast, the Vietnam Football Association is more pragmatic. They hired Troussier at a lower price to help the Vietnamese national team and young players improve their individual abilities. On the issue of coaching candidates, they should choose coaches who are suitable for their own soccer development instead of blindly fetishizing high-level coaches, which can help bring qualitative improvement to the national team. If that was the case, Lippi would have already led China to the World Cup! Now that Trucian has officially become the coach of Vietnam's national team, the coaching candidate for the national soccer team has yet to be determined, which seems to indicate that the power gap between China and Vietnam will grow bigger and bigger in future international matches, as Vietnamese soccer has been walking on the right path of development while Chinese soccer has been twisting.
