Phan Hung Phi (first from the left) and the family of Patrick Le Giang.

It is very had for Phi, Vice Chairman of Red Star Club, to approach overseas Vietnamese who play for reputed football clubs in Europe. In some cases, he needs half a year to get the first meeting. But Phi is not disheartened because he loves football and wishes to gather overseas talented football players to contribute to the home country.

He has discovered many talented footballers, including brothers Patrick Le Giang and Emil Le Giang, who are members of the Slovakian national squads; Nguyen Christopher who is playing for the Damstart Club (Germany); and Nguyen Quoc Trung, a member of the Swiss national team.

Phi and his friends set up a football club, gathering Vietnamese students and youngsters. The club plays friendlies against football teams of Vietnamese throughout Europe.

In 2006, when the World Cup FIFA 2006 was organised in Germany, Phi established the Vina Red Stars, a football team of Vietnamese-Germans. The team has branches in several cities in Germany and attracts Germans also. The club has 120 members, 70% of whom are Vietnamese-German. Phi is the club’s coach.

Besides his job as a coach, Phi is seeking new overseas Vietnamese football talents.

“Vina Red Stars has around 30 excellent youngsters, who were born in 1990-1993, and play for strong clubs in Europe. Whenever our team has a friendly match, they immediately return to join the team,” Phi said.

Phi was a member of the Hanoi Post Office’s basketball team. He went to Germany to work in the 1980s and settled there.

His four sons become footballers and two of them are playing for the Hertha Berlin club. Phi became a football coach unexpectedly. Once he went to a stadium to cheer for the team of his sons. He was warned that he would be expelled from the stadium for his extremist actions and words. He realised that he even had to learn to become a football fan. He researched football rules and studied to become a referee and a coach.

Phi is now the coach of the Vietnamese young football team in Europe and in Germany, and a referee of Brandenburg. He also works as a translator at a court in Germany.

Phi recently returned to Vietnam with some overseas Vietnamese footballers to prepare for friendly matches between the Vina Red Stars club and local teams in summer 2009.

(Source: TP)