After LS V-League and AFC Cup are postponed, Công Phượng continued to hear a not very happy news that he may miss major competitions of HCMC FC due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Công Phượng will miss major competitions of HCMC?

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has sent an announcement to its member confederations on postponement of all matches, competitions which are planned to take place in March and April 2020. This means that the second legs of HCMC FC and Than Quảng Ninh in AFC Cup 2020 in April cannot take place normally. The group stage’s first leg of the championship has passed through, coach Phan Thanh Hùng and his players rank 2nd in Group G, while V-League runners-up lead Group F.

In the situation when Covid-19 is happening more and more complicatedly, both infection sources and cases increase, leading to high infection risks to players and insiders, after postponing kick-off time from February to early March and passing through 2 round with closed-doors matches, V-League had to postpone until the end of March. According to the latest news, the organizing board has just had the third adjustment as they continue to delay return date of V-League 2020 to April 15th.

Despite of the postponement, the V-League will still take place within this year. However, another competition has to delay to the next year. According to ASEAN Football Federation (AFF), the ASEAN Club Championship – ACC) is planned to postpone to 2021. Initially, ACC is set up to happen with 10 rounds in 5 months.

At present, conditions and plans of many national leagues as well as of AFC are still not identified, thus, it may be much possible that there is not much time for this championship to finish in this year. Therefore, participating clubs may plan for their matches in 2021. Simultaneously, AFF women’s competitions (taken place in May), women’s U18 championship (to be taken place in June),  men’s U16 championship (to be taken place in July) will be all postponed to late this year. Particularly to U19 championship, in order to prepare for 6 teams qualified for AFC U19 Championship in Uzbekistan in October 2020, AFF will make effort to organize in September if possible.

As ACC is postponed to 2021, Công Phượng will miss the biggest competition for clubs in ASEAN. HCMC FC ought to play in 4 competitions, but now they just do in 3, including V-League, National Cup and AFC Cup. This takes the players’chance to crash to earn experience away.

The forward born in Nghệ An joined HCMC FC as his remaining half-year contract with Sint-Truidense (Belgium) was purchased by the Vietnamese club. There has been no official information whether he continues to stay with the hosts of Thống Nhất stadium until the end of the season. Thus, it is nearly sure that this striker will miss ACC hold in 2021.

Source – Thethaohcm.vn