The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) has assigned Navibank Saigon’s coach Mai Duc Chung, as the temporary coach of the national men’s football team.

Coach Mai Duc Chung

He will lead the team to play Macao in the two matches of the qualifying round of the 2014 World Cup on June 29 and July 3.

The current coach of Hanoi T&T FC, Phan Thanh Hung, has also been chosen as the trainer for the Vietnam Olympic team (U23 team), which will face Arab Saudi at in the qualifying round for the 2012 London Olympics on June 19 and 23.

Mai Duc Chung is a senior coach who led the national women’s football squad to the championship of the 22nd and 23rd Southeast Asian Games. He also led the Olympic Vietnam team to the third qualifier round of the Beijing Olympics 2008. The same year, the team won the championship of the Merdake friendly tournament in Malaysia.

In 2009, he brought Becamex Binh Duong club to the semi-final of the AFC Cup. Chung is now the coach of Navibank Saigon at V-League 2011.

Coach Phan Thanh Hung was the first assistant of the former coach of the national team Henrique Calisto. Hung led U23 Vietnam to the second round of the Asian Games 2010 for the first time. He also brought Hanoi T&T FC to the V-League 2010 championship. He is now still Hanoi T&T coach.

The VFF still confirmed to recruit a foreign coach for the national squad, but until now the name of the new coach has not been defined. The VFF had to temporarily appoint two Vietnamese coaches to timely register for the Olympic 2012 and World Cup 2016.

At the same time, the federation is negotiating with German Falko Goetz. The two sided signed a memorandum of understanding with ten clauses. Goetz could not come to Hanoi on May 6 as scheduled. The coach may arrive in Hanoi later this week to meet with VFF officials.

VFF Vice Chair, Nguyen Lan Trung said that the recruitment of a new coach may finish in May or June 2011.

PV