Vietnam women's team needs to add overseas Vietnamese players immediately

WASTING RESOURCES

The Vietnamese women's team ended the 2025 Southeast Asian Women's Football Championship (2025 Women's AFF Cup) with a bronze medal, winning 2 victories against Thailand and losing to Australia in the semi-finals. This result shows that Vietnamese women's football is still very strong in the region with 4 consecutive SEA Games gold medals. But looking further, the defeat against the Australian U.23 team shows that we are still far behind in terms of physique, fitness, nutrition, training... compared to strong teams in the continent. Twenty years after integrating with international football, while men's football is improving its physique with many players reaching a height of 1.8 m or more, women's football is still almost standing still. This is because most of the input for women's football comes from remote areas, many players are in difficult circumstances, so they do not receive attention to nutrition to develop physically...

Photo: Minh Tu

More than 10 years ago, in his role as Head of the Football Department of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training (now the Vietnam Sports and Physical Training Department), Coach Mai Duc Chung went to Europe and realized the great potential of overseas Vietnamese players. Thanks to him, Vietnamese football has welcomed Mac Hong Quan, the Patrick Le Giang brothers... This experienced coach himself has also witnessed overseas Vietnamese female players playing in the Czech Republic but has yet to see them wear the Vietnamese women's national team jersey. "I have been to Europe to watch overseas Vietnamese players play and found that this force is very abundant. Ten years ago, I talked about taking advantage of overseas Vietnamese player resources, but Vietnam still has difficulty in converting, mostly relying on the efforts of the family so it is not effective. It is a pity that the Vietnamese women's national team is still wasting overseas Vietnamese players' resources," he regretted.

C PROACTIVELY "ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET"

The spirit of national pride, steely will and courage have helped the Vietnamese women's team make a miracle to participate in the 2023 World Cup. However, those are not enough if they want to rise high in the continental and world arenas. And the fastest way to narrow the level is the source of overseas Vietnamese players. We have witnessed the duo Le Chelsea and Ton That Ashley Tram Anh playing very well, helping the Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club reach the semi-finals of the AFC Champions League 2024 - 2025. Le Chelsea also has a younger sister Le Kyah who also developed from the American school football system and plays for university teams in the United States. In addition, there are names like Dinh Kim Thanh (Kim Dinh Thanhova, born in 2003, has a Vietnamese father) who used to play for the U.19 Czech Republic; Linda Pham (born in 2006, Netherlands, both parents are Vietnamese) used to practice with the Vietnam U.20 team... Preliminary statistics show that there are more than 20 female players of Vietnamese origin born from 2000 onwards playing football in the US, Australia and Europe.

Up to now, the biggest difficulty for Vietnamese sports to attract overseas Vietnamese talent is that the regulations on long-term residency conditions in Vietnam have been relaxed, but finance is still a barrier. Coach Mai Duc Chung shared: "After men's football, women's football needs to proactively exploit overseas athletes with good qualifications, physique, and health to serve the Fatherland. We have a lot of foreign athletes, but to attract them, we must solve the question of what the regime will be like. For example, in the case of Le Chelsea, if he plays for Ho Chi Minh City Women's Club for 1 month, it is okay, but if he wants to stay long-term, can we meet the annual salary, housing, travel, etc. so that they can feel secure in their dedication? If there are detailed and extensive instructions on relaxing naturalization regulations, plus mobilizing resources to successfully attract quality overseas Vietnamese players, the Vietnamese women's team will be able to confidently aim for the 2026 Asian Cup with the goal of participating in the 2027 World Cup."