Reporter Ahn Young-joon = Two Korean leaders, Vietnamese coach Park Hang-seo and Indonesian coach Shin Tae-yong, will face off on the road to the top of Southeast Asia.
The two teams will play the first leg of the 2022 AFF Mitsubishi Cup semifinals at Gelora Bungkarno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia on the 6th (hereinafter Korean time). The second game will be held at My Dinh Stadium in Hanoi, Vietnam on the 9th.
The two leaders have led the ‘Era of Korean Coaches in Southeast Asia’ side by side and are guiding the team well enough to qualify for the championship in this competition.
It was director Park Hang-seo who played a pioneering role. Coach Park Hang-seo, who took over the Vietnamese baton in 2017, made a huge contribution to rewriting the history of Vietnamese football.
Coach Park Hang-seo, who won the tournament in 2018 and won the trophy for the first time in 10 years in Vietnam, stood at the center of the blast by leading the team to the quarterfinals in the 2019 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. 안전놀이터
Then, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Vietnam advanced to the final Asian qualifying round for the first time, setting another milestone.
As coach Park Hang-seo received favorable reviews not only in Vietnam but also in Southeast Asia, Indonesia also recruited coach Shin Tae-yong to make a change.
Director Shin lived up to expectations. In the 2020 AFF Cup, it caused a surprise by advancing Indonesia, which was considered weak, to the final.
Ironically, the two leaders, who have already raised the status of Korean football by being treated as ‘heroes’ in Vietnam and Indonesia, will play an inevitable game on a single bridge to advance to the final. One team makes it to the finals, but the other team is inevitably eliminated.
The two coaches have met twice on the Southeast Asian stage, and coach Park Hang-seo’s Vietnam is ahead with 1 win and 1 draw.
On the other hand, in the quarter-finals on the other side, Malaysia, led by coach Kim Pan-gon, challenges Thailand, the ‘powerhouse in Southeast Asia’, to the final.
If Malaysia advances to the final, a face-to-face confrontation between Korean leaders will take place in the final as well.
Vietnam and Malaysia met for the first time in the group stage of the tournament, which Vietnam won 3-0.
Even if Indonesia and Malaysia meet, it is interesting. Coach Pangon Kim also appointed coach Shin Tae-yong as the leader of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia A national team when he was the head of the Korea Football Association’s power reinforcement committee.