Indonesia football coach not happy at Troussier parting ways with Vietnam

Coach Shin Tae-yong (L) shakes hands with coach Philippe Troussier before Vietnam lost 0-3 to Indonesia in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in My Dinh Stadium, Hanoi, on March 26, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Lam Thoa

Indonesia returned home from Vietnam on Wednesday. At the airport, Indonesian media asked coach Shin how he felt about coach Troussier losing his job after the game.

The South Korean coach replied: "I’m not happy with the fact that coach Troussier left. The coach is always the one who’s responsible for the results."

The defeat against Indonesia on Tuesday left Vietnam with almost no chance of qualifying for the third round of the 2026 World Cup and that was the final straw that forced Troussier to terminate his contract early with Vietnamese football, which was valid until July 2026.

Before that, he also failed to reach the target at SEA Games 32 as the U23 team only won a bronze medal. The national team were then eliminated from the 2023 Asian Cup group stage with three defeats.

On the other side, after a difficult start, coach Shin has been hailed as a hero of Indonesian football. Fans in the country are calling on the Football Association of Indonesia to soon extend the contract with the South Korean coach, when the current contract expires in June.

Shin said he was unlucky in the early stages of coaching Indonesia due to the pandemic. The team were not built as he expected, leading to several defeats when playing Vietnam under coach Park Hang-seo.

From 2022, things were more stable and the policy of promoting naturalized players helped Indonesia transform, while Vietnamese football declined under coach Troussier.

Coach Shin only got two draws and two defeats out of four matches against Vietnam under Park but has had three wins since Troussier became the head coach.

Shin said that Indonesia were somewhat lucky to win big at My Dinh, while Vietnam were not weaker but lacked cohesion.

Indonesia are currently second in Group F in the second qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup, with seven points, four points ahead of Vietnam. The team only need to win one more match in the last two, against Iraq and Philippines in June, to be sure of advancing to the third round of the World Cup qualifiers for the first time in their history.