Coming from a poor family of 17 siblings, he started playing football at the age of 5 and was brilliant in his youth team.
He grew up in the arsenal-owned youth school and embarked on the road to staying in the West under the nickname of "Lionel Messi of Vietnam".
From the Japanese J League to the Korean K League, despite the bumps in the road, he insisted on moving forward and even stepped onto the stage of the Belgian First Division.
Leng Warm and Warm on Liuyang Road knew that when he returned to Vietnam at the age of 25, Ruan Gongfeng's growth was not as smooth as expected, but he himself would not regret it.
01. Poor families from 17 siblings: grew up in a youth system run by Arsenal
Born in January 1995, Nguyen Gong Fung comes from a poor family in Du Lem District, Nghe An Province, Vietnam. Ranked No. 5 in a family with 17 children, he grew up playing straw-woven football with his brother, who was 2 years older than himself. When Ruan Gongfeng was 9 years old, his brother died of drowning, but he still firmly believed in his football dreams.
Despite showing his football talent early on and playing well in youth competitions in his hometown of Nghe An Province, he was trapped in a stunted body and failed to meet the 30 kg standard of the professional team Song Lan Nghe An Youth Team (he was only 25.4 kg), and Nguyen Gong Feng's football road once came to the edge of the cliff.
Fortunately, vietnamese football at that time set off a wind of reform, and with the establishment of the Hwang Eng Ka Lai Arsenal JMG Football Academy, this youth training institution in conjunction with Arsenal selected talented young people from all over Vietnam.
The genius seized the opportunity that belonged to him, and Nguyen Gong Fung stood out among the 7,000 candidates, becoming one of the first 16 players of Huang Ying JiaLai Arsenal. At the beginning of the establishment, children even played barefoot, because many of them were really reluctant to put on sneakers to train on their usual days.
At the age of 17, Nguyen Gong Fung and four other players were invited by Arsenal to go to U17 for trial training. Wenger, then the gunners manager, particularly praised Nguyen's talent in training. After spending 8 years in Hoang Ngalai, Nguyen Gong Phuong stepped onto the stage of the VietnamEse League at the age of 20, scoring 6 goals in 22 games in his first season and being named the league's Rookie of the Year.
02. Three times of staying in the ocean is not successful: improve the self-hearted without regret
At the end of 2015, Ruan Gongfeng, who was only 20 years old at the time, came to Mito Hollyhock in Japan's J2 League for a loan fee of $100,000. However, leaving his familiar environment, Ruan Gongfeng found that the outside world was very cold. Even in the japanese second division, he only got five appearances in the whole season, and failed to score goals and assists, and finally returned to Huang Ying Jialai after 1 year.
However, the first time he stayed in Yang, he gained a lot, and after returning to China, he went up a big step, and the 22-year-old Ruan Gongfeng scored 16 goals in a single season (12 of which came from the league). 4 goals is the domestic cup), almost 3 times his own transcript at the age of 20.
So at the beginning of 2019, Nguyen GongFeng once again embarked on the road to Stay in yang, and his second stop chose the Korean K League to join Incheon United. This time he slowly gained a foothold and got a steady chance to play.
Surprisingly, he did not have a plan to play firmly in the K-League, but instead moved to belgian First Division side San Turdon in the summer transfer window six months later, leaving the team by voluntarily proposing to terminate the contract.
With the title of the first Vietnamese person in Europe (10 years older than him, Le Gong Rong once joined the Portuguese Super League and entered the team's competition roster), Nguyen Gong Fung received widespread attention and support. But on the pitch, the reality is brutal. He was not strong enough to gain a foothold in the Europa League, and during his time at San Turdon he was only given one substitute appearance.
It was the second round of the league and the team was already 4-0 behind Bruges. Nguyen Gong Fung's appearance did not help, and the 0-6 score allowed St. Turdon to suffer two consecutive black starts.
After this fiasco, Nguyen Gong Feng never played for the first team again, and could only find a presence in the youth team game, scoring 1 goal. So Nguyen Khun Phuong returned to Vietnam after half a year, ending his third stay in the Ocean.
However, Nguyen Gong Feng himself will not regret the choice to stay in the Ocean three times, and he scored three goals at the 2018 Southeast Asian Championships to help Vietnam win the championship. Subsequently, the team reached the semi-finals with a wave of 5 consecutive wins at the Asian Games, triggering national celebrations.
At the 2019 Asian Cup, Nguyen Scored against Iraq and Jordan. In particular, Jordan equalised in the round of 16 and became the national hero of the team to advance to the top 8. This time, the team successfully reached the top 12, and Nguyen Gong Fung has a high popularity in Vietnam.
In 2020, he became engaged to his girlfriend of 4 years, Vin-Ming. The latter had already earned an MBA before the gift, and the two owned a sports company under their names, and his fiancée, Vane-Ming, was responsible for the operation and management of the company.
From a poor family with 17 children, Ruan Gongfeng has stepped step by step to the height of no one in the country.
03. Thoughts triggered from St. Turdine: the first stop in the ocean should be lowered
Many old Chinese fans talk about Vietnamese football, and the most impressive is the "Vietnamese ball king" Le Xuan Tak, who came to play in A A that year. As the leader of Vietnamese football at the turn of the century, he still holds the record for goals scored in the history of the national team, winning the Golden Boot and MVP in the domestic league many times.
At 1.8 meters tall, he has good foot skills, and even in the 1997 World Preliminary Tournament, zhang Enhua and Fan Zhiyi scored a sensation. During his time in A, he played a total of 4 games, 1 start and 3 substitutes, and the only goal was against the veteran Shanghai Shenhua. Because of this goal in China's top league, Vietnamese fans who love him even took to the streets to celebrate.
After 20 years, Vietnamese football will no longer regard the Chinese league as a target to look up to, and their players will choose the Japanese J League, the Korean K League, and even go to Europe.
Belgian club St. Turden is a wholly owned Team of Japan and a springboard for famous Japanese players traveling to Europe. It was in this team that Kamada found confidence after his first year of defeat in the Bundesliga and then returned to the Bundesliga to shine. Hang Endo and Kenyo Fuan, two of the current pillars of the Japanese national team, also spent the first leg of European football adaptation in St. Turden.
The year Nguyen joined St. Turdon, the team had a total of five Asians from Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Li Shengyou, who once grew up in Barca's youth training, is also a teammate of Ruan Gongfeng.
Chinese players have also had precedents for Dong Fangzhuo and Wang Shangyuan to successfully establish themselves in the Belgian league, but more people still hope that their first stop in the west is the five major leagues.
Today, when Guo Tianyu joined the Portuguese Premier League on loan, and Li Lei and Jia Boyan came to Switzerland, it copied the road of Japanese players staying in the Ocean to a certain extent.
Chinese teams in Europe's second- or third-rate leagues may be what more Chinese fans should consider. It is wiser to get a foothold there and then think about moving on to the next stop.
epilogue:
Compared with the national football team, Vietnam is still inferior in strength. However, as Arsenal's youth training system has cultivated more Nguyen Gong Fung, their potential in the future is great. In particular, more players with the dream of staying in The West to go out of Vietnam and go to the world, if we can't improve in time, maybe one day in the future will face Vietnamese football, just like the pressure of the enemy.
(Lust)