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The incident occurred in the 34th minute when CAHN were leading 1-0 and Nam Dinh were awarded a throw-in.
Nam Dinh defender Tran Van Kien was bending to pick up the ball when Gong stopped him with his leg. Kien could be seen hitting Gong with his elbow, which apparently angered Gong even more before other players and staff got in the middle of the altercation.
He continued to shout at Kien and even took off his jacket in frustration. Referee Nguyen Dinh Thai then gave both Gong and Kien a yellow card.
Coach Gong Oh-kyun of Cong An Hanoi (CAHN) is embroiled in a heated altercation with a Nam Dinh player at a V. League game, Dec. 9, 2023.
Gong said after the match that he had reacted that way because Kien had hit him in the chest.
"Should I just have stood there?" he said. "That’s a pretty rude act. I have told my players to absolutely do no such things. After the match, the Nam Dinh player came to see me and apologized, so it is a situation not worth mentioning."
CAHN led by two goals thanks to successful shots by Bui Hoang Viet Anh in the 30th minute and Nguyen Quang Hai in the 75th. But Nam Dinh came back strongly in the second half to equalize thanks to Rafaelson Bezerra Fernandes in the 85th minute and Nguyen Van Toan in the 88th.
The game was coach Gong’s second with CAHN, after he signed with the club in October. They lost 3-1 to Hai Phong in the previous game and are standing fourth in the V. League table, with Nam Dinh on top.
Gong, 49, coached Vietnam at the U23 Asian Cup in 2022, with two draws and a win in the group stage before a 2-0 elimination in the semifinals to Saudi Arabia, who went on to win the event. Gong parted ways with the team after the competition ended.
