After last night's 0-3 defeat to Indonesia at home and basically missing the round of 18, Vietnam coach Troussier said at the post-match press conference: The question of whether to leave the class has not yet been discussed, and the future will be discussed with the Vietnam Football Association on Wednesday. But then, the Vietnam Football Association announced the decision of the Frenchman to step down overnight, and Trussier's eighth tenure as a coach for the national team ended in disgrace. This is also Troussier's third halfway class after leaving the Shenzhen team in 2013, and it is also the eighth consecutive time he has been fired due to poor results after the 2002 South Korea-Japan World Cup.
Since taking office on March 1 last year, Trussier has made the Vietnamese team built by Park Hengxu suffer three "three consecutive defeats" in only 392 days: at the beginning of the Asian Cup, the Vietnamese team aiming to qualify suffered three consecutive defeats and became the first team to go out of the group; in the round of 36, in addition to winning the first game against the Philippines, they lost to Iraq in the next three games. The most intolerable thing for the Vietnamese Football Association and fans is that within two months, the Vietnamese team was defeated by the former team to complete the "three kills", and the first-class football power in Southeast Asia lost face.
Last night, the entire Mai Dinh stadium in Hanoi was shouting "Trussier step down", and the Vietnamese Football Association quickly cut through the mess and reached a termination agreement at 10:51 that night. After the Vietnamese team returned to their hotel, Trussier said goodbye to the players.
The French coach managed the Vietnamese team to only 4 wins and 10 losses in 14 games, with a low winning rate of 28.6%. Since losing 1-0 at home to Iraq on November 21 last year, Vietnam has suffered seven consecutive defeats. Dating back to the 2-0 defeat to China in October last year, Vietnam has lost 10 of its last 11 games and only won against the Philippines. Of the 12 coaches who have coached more than 10 games since 1991, Trussier has a winning percentage (28.6%) that is only better than that of local coach Tran Binh Thi (18%) in 1993, ranking second from the bottom. Among Vietnam's 13 all-time coaches, Troussier's winning percentage is only higher than that of Portugal's coach Calisto (26.2%), who coached from 2008 to 2011. However, Callisto won at least one Southeast Asian Cup title for Vietnam, while Troussier was empty-handed.
A year ago, in the Southeast Asia Cup, Park Hengxu's Vietnamese team was undefeated in the group stage and semifinals against Shen Tailong's Indonesian team with 1 win and 2 draws, and eliminated the opponent to enter the final. In just one year, the two teams have changed their positions: the Indonesian team not only killed the Vietnamese team three times, but also ended the embarrassing record of 20 years of winless in Vietnam with a 3-0 victory last night, and also made the Vietnamese Football Association completely dead to Trussier.
After more than five years as a strategic advisor to the Vietnam Football Association at the end of 2018, Troussier's trip to Vietnam ended in disastrous results. During this period, he coached Vietnam U19, U23 and senior national teams, although he brought the Vietnam U23 team to the U23 Asian Cup finals in April, but after taking over from Park Hengxu to coach the Vietnamese team in March last year, he was "flat and fell". After three consecutive wins in the warm-up matches in June and September, the Vietnamese team began to lose in free fall. 0-6 loss to South Korea, 2-4 loss to Japan, 0-1 and 2-3 double loss to Iraq is barely acceptable, more than 1 month by the Indonesian team 3 clean sheets net loss of 5 goals, the team basically missed the round of 18, completely defeated the Vietnamese Football Association's psychological bottom line.
After Troussier took office, a large number of newcomers in the U23 age group were used, trying to gradually transition to complete the replacement of the old and new players in the Vietnamese team. Helplessly, there is a significant gap between the strength of this group of newcomers and the "golden generation" of the 2018 U23 Asian Cup runner-up army, and it is counterproductive to promote the seedlings. The French are indeed unlucky, there are too many main injuries in the Asian Cup, Deng Wenlin, Duan Wenhou, Pan Wende, Nguyen Hoang Duc, Gui Yuhai and Ruan Jinling are injured, resulting in a big loss of the team's strength and finally three consecutive defeats; the accident of personal mistakes in key games of players is really bizarre, last year's round of 36 was killed by Iraq due to a personal mistake by goalkeeper Deng Wenlin before the end, and Wu Minh Zhong and Pan Juncai, who were promoted in the round of 36 in March, made consecutive mistakes. Although the powerful players of the Park Hengxu era were reactivated in this campaign, the number one star Nguyen Quang Hai was put on the bench, burying the dream of the Vietnamese team to qualify for the round of 18, and also ruining his position.
On March 21, Trussier just celebrated his 69th birthday, and the players of the Vietnamese team gave them a birthday cake in advance. Regrettably, only 5 days later, the French coach bid farewell to the Vietnamese team with the shame of two games against Indonesia and 4 bombs. Already after the Vietnamese team was eliminated from the Asian Cup, the Vietnamese media were already discussing Trussier's successor. The main candidates are from local league coaches who are more familiar with Vietnamese football, and the favorite is Bulgarian coach Popov of Thanh Hoa. The latter led the team with mediocre players to 4th place in the league, and there is no doubt about his ability.
However, the Vietnamese media and fans still hope that Park Hengxu will come back and lead the Vietnamese team out of the predicament. The South Korean coach, who now works as an adviser to Vietnam's lower league clubs, also seems to have hinted at plans to return to Vietnam's coaching position. However, even if they return now, the only goal for Vietnam is the Southeast Asian Cup at the end of the year and the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers in the future. The Vietnam Football Association has paid a heavy price for its blind superstition about the aura of European coaches.