8 football events of the year

Football is the king of sports in much of the world, including Viet Nam. 2008 was a year of ups and downs for football in the country, culminating on a huge high note with the recent AFF Suzuki Cup win. Here are the 8 biggest highlights, selected by Viet Nam News. 
 

1. After 49 years of waiting, the national men’s football team triumphed for the first time at a Southeast Asian football tournament. 
 

Viet Nam defeated Thailand 3-2 on aggregate in the AFF Suzuki Cup finals on Sunday to become the No 1 team in the region. Although the success only happened in the last days of the year, it is by far the year’s biggest.

It was also the first time Viet Nam took a win over Thailand, since a 3-0 victory against them in the Tiger Cup’s semi-final round ten years ago. 

2.  The national women’s football team was the first runner-up at the Southeast Asian Women’s Football Championship.

Chinese coach Chen Yun Fat helped the team become the pride of the nation, when they only lost 0-1 to powerhouse Australia in the final match in HCMCity in October.

The women defeated both Myanmar and SEA Games champion Thailand, who are big rivals on the way to the final. Australia, who became a member of the Asian Football Federation only a year ago, took their win after Vietnamese defenders mistakenly scored on themselves.

3. Viet Nam’s under-23 football team championed at Malaysia’s Merdeka Cup. 

Coach Mai Duc Chung was voted by local journalists to be the best local coach of the year, after his young team surpassed national teams to take the victory at the 42-year-old tournament.

4.  Olympic Brazil team visited Viet Nam

This was one of the biggest international football events that Viet Nam organised and enjoyed in 2008. The team created a fever in all corners of the country; everybody wanted to see and touch for themselves the ‘samba dancers’ Ronaldinho, Pato, Anderson, Marcelo and Lucas Leiva, who were trained by football legend Carlos Dunga.

5. Henrique Calisto was brought on as the national men’s football team coach.
 

It was the most important decision of the Viet Nam Football Federation of the year. The Portuguese gave national football fans a wonderful AFF Cup victory that they have waited on for nearly half of century.

Calisto was chosen among a long list of impressive candidates. He was appreciated for his ability to ‘read’ the match, daring but accurate decisions, his enthusiasm for the game and his previous experience here as coach in 2002. He was voted the best foreign coach of 2008.

6. Becamex Binh Duong triumphed the V-League for the second straight year, and two Hanoian teams were relegated to the First Division.

Binh Duong have made headlines throughout the year, because of winning the V-League two years in a year. They did not receive much attention in the first half of the season, but made an impressive comeback to finish first with 47 points, leaving runner-up Dong Tam Long An two points behind.

The 2008 season also saw the disappointing performance of two teams from the capital, and together they were relegated to the lower league. Both teams had poor results all season and negative consequence were predicted early on.

7.  Le Cong Vinh was given a record high transferring fee of about VND7 billion (US$400,000). 
 

The three-time Golden Ball winner will start at his new club T&T Ha Noi after ending his contract with Song Lam Nghe An on Wednesday. His salary will be around VND40 million ($2,300) per month, the highest salary in the history of Vietnamese football. 

T&T will play in the V-League this year after their remarkable performance in the First Division in 2008.

8.  Fabio Dos Santos became Vietnamese citizen. 

The Brazilian, whose Vietnamese name is Phan Van Santos, is the first foreign sportsman granted Vietnamese nationality after getting the approval of President Nguyen Minh Triet last year.

Santos plays for former V-League champions Dong Tam Long An. He met all legal requirements for Vietnamese citizenship – living and working in Viet Nam for at least five years and being able to communicate in Vietnamese.

He was called to join the national football team in some tournaments before he left because of family reasons.