Vietnam Team: Why is Coach Kim Sang Sik struggling?

The Vietnamese team completed the goal of getting 3 points against Nepal in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers, but the victory of coach Kim Sang Sik and his team did not bring satisfaction to fans.

A hard-won victory

Although rated much higher than Nepal in every aspect from expertise to international competition experience, and even having more players throughout the match, the Vietnamese team could only win 3-1 against their opponent with great difficulty.

Facing a Nepal team that proactively deployed a large defensive formation (which was expected), coach Kim Sang Sik's students encountered numerous difficulties in finding a way into the opponent's goal as they often did before.

Vietnam team won against Nepal. Photo: Huu Ha

Even after opening the score, the Vietnamese team still did not play very well and quickly let Nepal equalize. In the following time, due to the lack of patience in the deployment phase, combined with the ability to finish not sharp enough, the first half of the home team passed heavily.

It was not until the second half, when Nepal lost strength and lost players, that Vietnam took advantage of the opportunity to score two more goals, making the score 3-1. However, this victory was clearly not easy, and was even more difficult than many people thought.

Why?

The first reason comes from Nepal itself, the team from South Asia shows that it is not an easy team to bully as its ranking on the FIFA rankings.

Nepal's defensive and counter-attacking style of play was very well organized, the players followed tactical discipline and caused a lot of difficulties for the Vietnamese team.

Obviously, Nepal had done a thorough research to counter Vietnam's playing style, while on the contrary, coach Kim Sang Sik lacked information about his opponent, leading to certain surprises. Along with that, the somewhat subjective mentality of some positions on the field caused the home team to not really enter the game well.

But this is certainly not an easy victory for coach Kim Sang Sik's team. Photo: Huu Ha

The second and most important reason comes from the Vietnamese team itself. In the first half, although they only scored one goal, they showed a more diverse playing style with small, one-touch combinations in the middle, creating more opportunities to approach the goal.

However, after the break, the red shirt boys' playing style became monotonous and confusing, abusing wing attacks, but the quality of the crosses from the wings was very low, unable to cause trouble for the concentrated defense of Nepal.

And as mentioned, when Nepal had "figured out" the players and playing style of the Vietnamese team, coach Kim Sang Sik should have made more novel personnel changes to cause surprises, but unfortunately that did not happen.

It can be seen that, although they have 3 points, this victory still has too many worries for the Vietnamese team. This will be an expensive lesson for coach Kim Sang Sik and his team to look back and improve before entering the rematch at Thong Nhat Stadium in a few days.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/tuyen-viet-nam-vi-dau-ma-hlv-kim-sang-sik-vat-va-2451325.html