National team striker Nguyen Viet Thang announced his retirement from football after failing to find a club for the coming season.

Thang, 33, ended his contract with Dong Tam Long An last year and shopped around for a new uniform.

The Dong Tam Long An contract will now be the last of his 17-year career.

“It is not easy to say goodbye after nearly two decades playing football. However my tired legs and injuries force me to stop,” he said.

Growing up as a member of HCM City’s Police team, Thang quickly found his place on the national team in 2000 when he was just 19.

At his best, Thang dominated the V-League from the front line of Hoang Anh Gia Lai and Dong Tam Long An teams in 2003-04 and 2005-06, respectively.

He was also a key player on Viet Nam’s triumphant 2008 ASEAN Football Federation Cup team.

He famously received a VND9 billion (US$428,000) contract to move to Binh Duong in 2011. However, within only one year, he was traded to Thanh Hoa on a loan contract because of poor performance.

He was again quickly passed on to Dong Tam Long An where injuries sidelined him for half of the 2014 season. Thang plans to take courses and become a coach.

Source: VNS

The Vietnamese national football team were beaten 1-3 by Palestine in a friendly match organized in Hanoi on Sunday in preparation for the 2014 Southeast Asian Championship that will kick off in less than two weeks.

Vietnam (L) were beaten 1-3 by Palestine in a friendly match in Hanoi on November 9, 2014.

Japanese coach Toshiya Miura of the Vietnamese team said that it was his worst game since he took the helm in May.
“My players entered the game with no competitive spirit,” he said. “They thus entitled the Palestinian players to more space to stage dangerous attacks.
“After conceding the first goal, my players even forgot their defensive tasks.”
All the four goals of the match were scored in the second half.
In the 56th minute, three Palestinian players confronted Vietnamese goalkeeper To Vinh Loi after a long pass from their home field and Abuhabib opened the scoring for the visitors.

Fifteen minutes later, midfielder Hisham Salhi made a flying kick and extended his side’s lead to 2-0. Substitute Mahmoud Eld netted the third goal for Palestine notwithstanding the defense of three Vietnamese players in the box in the 83rd minute.

Van Quyet scored the only goal for Vietnam in the 89th minute after dribbling the ball past three Palestinian players and defeating goalie Tawfiq abu Hammad.

Palestinian coach Ahmed M.A. Alhasan admitted that the Vietnamese defenders played sluggish football and therefore created ample space for their rivals to attack.
The world’s football governing body, FIFA, recognizes Palestine to have their own football association, so the Palestinian national team are allowed to play at FIFA-sanctioned tournaments.
Vietnam and Singapore are the hosts of the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup that will open on November 22 and close on December 20.
Last month, Myanmar and Laos won the qualifying round of five teams ranked the lowest in Southeast Asia – with the other three being Brunei, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste – to advance to the finals of the competition which is the regional championship.

Vietnam will take on the Philippines, Indonesia, and Laos in Group A while Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar are placed in Group B.
The semifinal and final games will be played on a home and away format from December 6 to 20

Source Tuoitre

Many provincial stadiums in Vietnam have been left deserted and almost unusable after local football (soccer) clubs were relegated to lower-tier competitions or pulled out of the country’s highest-level league, even though they cost tens of billions of dong (VND10 billion = US$481,000).

Tien Giang Stadium has been left deserted for years.

When a football club is eliminated from the top-flight V-League, investment in the club, which comes from the state budget and corporate sponsorship, is cut or considerably decreased.
These reductions, combined with the steady drop in the number of fans attending matches due to the lack of competition, have caused many stadiums to become abandoned.
Stadiums in provinces such as Tien Giang, Kien Giang, An Giang and Dong Thap in the Mekong Delta region, and Ninh Binh in the north, have recently been left empty after their clubs were eliminated from the V-League.
Tien Giang Stadium, with over 12,000 seats, was the ‘holy land’ of local fans before 2007, when the team competed in the top-tier league of Vietnam.
It was once rated as the stadium with the best grass surface in the region.
Tien Giang authorities decided to invest VND20 billion ($961,500) to upgrade the stadium, which was always packed with fans when it hosted matches of the home team.
In the 2007-2008 season, Tien Giang were knocked out of the V-League and relegated to the First Division (the second-tier league) the following season. Their stadium has become derelict ever since, and has only opened for a handful of matches each year.
An official from the Tien Giang Sports Center, which manages the stadium, said he turns on the lighting system of the facility for around 15 minutes every week just for maintenance.
Another stadium, Cao Lanh in Dong Thap Province, has faced a similar situation over the past four months after Dong Thap FC stopped training and announced their withdrawal from V-League due to a lack of investment.
The grass at the 20,000 seat arena has not been cut since the club cannot afford to pay for it.
But the stadiums are not expected to open to the public because of the absence of investment for maintenance costs.
Kien Giang Stadium has sat desolate since Kien Giang FC were disbanded last year for financial reasons.
Shortly before the team’s dissolution, the stadium was upgraded with a VND16 billion ($769,200) lighting system.
The operations of such stadiums as An Giang and Ninh Binh have been occasionally maintained for youth competitions only

Source Tuoitre