After spending two days at Nghe An Province, Vinh, we were on the earliest flight back to the capital, Hanoi. And that was also the start of the meeting with some interesting profiles on our second part of the trip!
Our first destination was Vietnam Youth Football Training Center located at My Dinh. In fact, it is also where the Vietnam Professional Football (VPF) and Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) are located. For those who are familiar with Vietnamese football, you would have heard of My DInh National Stadium, the home ground of Vietnam National football team. VPF and VFF are just a stone throw away from the Stadium.
Immediately once we arrived at VPF, we had the honor of meeting up with VPF General Director & VFF Vice President, Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Vien for a Vietnamese green tea at his cosy office to speak about Vietnamese football. After introducing ourselves to Prof. Dr. Pham, our eyes could not help but kept looking at the various photos of Prof. Dr. Pham with various key personnels in the football scene mounted on the wall and the two big trophies on the desk! There was also a huge poster of two V.League players fighting for a ball, whom one of them we could recognize as we just watched him played the day earlier – Song Lam Nghe An FC’s captain, Nguyen Trong Hoang!
Prof. Dr. Pham was an extremely friendly man. Despite his hectic schedule, he was willing to put aside everything to meet up with us for a pleasant 30mins or more. Our meeting was not just about V.League football, we even spoke about Singapore football and SingaCup, Singapore’s International Youth Cup which is held in every November. Prof. Dr. Pham also took the opportunity to introduce the training center to us over the cup of Vietnamese strong green tea! Just before we were led to the Training Center’s pitches for a walk, Prof. Dr. Pham also gave us some VPF pins and keychain as souvenir!
After meeting Prof. Dr. Pham, we were led around VPF offices and the Training Center for some rare photo-taking opportunities.
The Training Center boosts 6 football pitches consist of both natural and artificial grass. So similar to Japan’s J-Village and the newly opened England’s National Football Centre, this is a place where the National footballers will be housed for centralized training. We were lucky enough as we managed to catch ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Women’s Champion, Vietnam Women football team’s training at one of the pitches under the whistle and eyes of their China coach, Chen Yun Fa.
The training environment looked decent but we noticed there were some futsal pitches located at the back end of the Training Center where it’s opened for the public. So while we were snapping photos around the football pitch where the players were training, occasionally there would be aspiring players walking towards the end of the Training Center with their boots on their hands. Probably, the route was arranged in such a way where the aspiring players could be inspired and motivated when they walked past football pitches which National players could be training at! Not a bad idea after all!
Next, we had an interview session with one of the most recognizable faces in Vietnam football scene at VFF, Vietnam & Hanoi T&T FC’s Pham Thanh Luong!
The twice Vietnam Golden Ball Award winner shared with us his footballing experience as well as his personal view on the current V.League campaign. Although we might not understand what the soft-spoken man was saying, we could feel his passion for the game and his desire to achieve more in football through the help of the translator. Right after the interview with Junpiter Futbol, Thanh Luong had to rush to the TV Station for another “live” interview. Just before he left, Thanh Luong took time to autograph on the jersey which we had prepared too.
The next interesting profile whom we had met in Hanoi was Dr. Lionel Wong. Lionel, a former educator with various Universities in Singapore, is a Singaporean who speaks fluent Vietnamese and also the founder of Vietnam Football Passion Academy (VFPA), the official partner of AFC Ajax Online Academy in Hanoi.
With the academy’s mission of training and playing the same way as Ajax Amsterdam’s stars, having fun in a safe way under qualified coaches, be healthy, learn important life skills and life values, and with all the professional curriculum directly from Ajax Academy Online, the number of students has been increasing in an unbelievable rate. Former Vietnam National Team’s captain, Nguyen Duc Thang, is the head coach at the Academy. Assisting the head coach are coaches from United Kingdom and America and interestingly, ambassador of VFPA is actually former Singapore’s captain, Nazri Nasir!
Having lived in Hanoi for nearly 2 years, Lionel has already gotten used to the football culture in Vietnam. Not only did he share with us on how the Vietnamese players improved their games by playing 7-aside futsal, Lionel also shared with us his football ambition – expanding the Academy to the rest of the Indochina region such as Laos & Cambodia in the next 5 years to unearth and develop more talents and share more joys in the name of football!
The youngest and last profile whom we were meeting for this fruitful Vietnam Football Trip was 22yrs old Football Freestyler, Phat Ngoc Phat. Mind you, this Asian Freestyle Championship 2nd runners up and Hanoi Football Freestyle Champion belongs to ATW Team (Around The World) could easily do an “Around-the-world” with the ball 74 times at one go!
Phat invited us to his house which was about 10mins ride from the Old Quarter where we were staying in Hanoi, treated us to a scrumptious feast of roasted meat and noodles just right outside his doorstep! Well, and you know the kind hospitality was going to get you a good write-up!!
This young man got attracted to football freestyling 6 years ago when he chanced upon a football freestyling video done by his fellow country mate, Nam. Ever since, Phat has been following this belief of… If Nam, a Vietnamese can do it, so can he!
Not only does he practice 3-5 hours a day, he and his team are also busy running round the TV station for their weekly football freestyle tutorial which is aired in Vietnam weekly! As football freestyling is gradually gaining its popularity in Vietnam, so what is his ambition?
“I want to be a professional football freestyler just like Nam!”, said the Hanoi number-1!
More photos of Junpiter Futbol’s stay in Hanoi and the various interesting profiles, Click Here.
Thanks to Vietnam Football Federation/ Vietnam Professional Football’s General Director, Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Vien, Ms Van Thanh Thuy, Mr. Pham Truong Minh & Pham Thanh Luong, Vietnam Football Passion Academy’s Dr. Lionel Wong, ATW Team’s Phat Ngoc Phat and special thanks to SingaCup, Singapore International Youth Cup’s Organizer, Dynamique Konzepts for making this trip possible.
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