The tenth issue of “From Pitches in Asia,” reporting voices of instructors in Asian countries, is from NORIMATSU Takashi, who coaches the national women’s team in Vietnam.

Road to final qualifying round in Asia for Rio Olympics

After competed among Chinese Taipei, Jordan, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam in the Asian Qualifiers Round 2 of Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Rio 2016 held in Myanmar last month, Vietnam successfully secured the spot in the final qualifying round. It gave me a great satisfaction because we achieved the biggest goal we had for this year. Since I took this position, we had done every preparation possible to achieve this goal.  

Having Mr. NAGIRA Masayuki, who has been dispatched by JFA to the Chinese Taipei Women’s National Team as Coach, bring his national team for a training camp in Vietnam, and working hard to realise our training camp in Japan with support from JFA were some of the examples of what we did. In terms of our team development plan, our priorities were to improve our physical fitness not to get worn out even through densely-scheduled qualifiers and making sure that everyone understands our tactics, which take advantage of Vietnamese players’ strength with “effectiveness” as our keyword.

It was my first “national team” coaching job in my career, so at first I did my everyday work, feeling a strong sense of responsibility. But as I started coaching with focus on every single player one by one, I realised there were many similarities to what I used to do in my old coaching job in Japan. 

Of course I am always well aware of the responsibility of leading a national team representing that country and also the fact that I am in a position that can greatly affect each player’s career. In order to achieve good results at important matches, I have made a great number of detailed arrangements one after another and carried out necessary preparations at the right time. It is important to have everyone involved understand my intentions, but when you are in a different culture, it does not always go the same way as it does at home. Therefore, fulfilling my mission to advance out of the qualifier made me so emotional. 

It is a great opportunity for Vietnamese women’s football to play in the final qualifying round to be held in Osaka in February next year. I believe in our potential and hope to carry out as much preparations as we can think of. I am always looking for the most optimal way how I can contribute to the development of Vietnamese football in the limited amount of my assignment time. 

On life in Vietnam, women’s football

When I was still new in Vietnam, I was unfamiliar to ordinary things here such as seeing a large number of motorcycles running around and crossing busy streets without a traffic light. But after six months here, I am now used to most of the things. It takes some kind of energy for you to work in a different country and understand characteristics and philosophies of local people. 

I have my son going to a Japanese school here. Because he learned the Vietnam’s national anthem at class, I was able to learn the song from him at a fairly early stage of my stay. Singing the anthem together with my players, officials and all the supporters at an international match gave me a very strong emotional tie to Vietnam, and it is one of the episodes that I will not forget in the rest of my life for sure. 

The top women’s league in Vietnam has two very intensive one-month schedules in a year, one as the first stage and the other as the second. Seven teams play in the league, but top three are far better than the rest. When the league is on, I try to watch as many matches as possible, and we hold national team camps between the league periods. 

Compared to the first camp we had, our players’ performance is now much improved including the physical fitness standpoint. There is a language barrier, but I try to communicate with them as much as I can and always teach them to think while playing. After all the training based on numerous repetitions of trials and errors and past experiences, our players proved the worthiness of our preparations on the pitches at the Asian Qualifiers Round 2 that I mentioned. 

Now it is necessary for us to keep improving, having more depth on the squad and continuously develop better skills. As part of the long-term player development plans, several years ago the Vietnam Football Federation established an academy in the training centre, where they centre their activities on U-14 and U-16 players.

Message to coaches aiming for jobs abroad

Working abroad means you always have the unexpected including what you experience off the work. But you can feel satisfactions and gain experiences that are impossible in Japan. I personally was lucky enough to experience other countries even when I was a player. But I never imagined when I was coaching in Japan that I would be in this position in the future.

When you challenge something new, failures are always there, but every single “the first time experience” that you gain numerous times expands your capacity. Football is a worldwide sport, and there can be those who may be evaluated higher overseas. Not everyone gets the same opportunity. So if it comes to you, I suggest you take it positively and give it a try.