Injury rules out Vietnamese midfielder for 9 months

Luong Xuan Truong in a training session with Vietnam national football team in Hanoi, September 30, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Nguyen.

About an hour into a Monday training session, Truong was writhing in pain after a collision with his teammate. After initial checks by a medical team, he was carried out by his teammates because he couldn't walk by himself.

On Tuesday morning, Truong and the national team doctor went to a hospital and to run some diagnostic tests. The 24-year-old player underwent an MRI scan and the results showed that he had torn his front anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a fairly common but serious knee injury.

Experts have tentatively assessed that it will take nine months for Truong to fully recover from the severe injury. The midfielder will therefore miss all of the World Cup qualification matches this year and the next.

This is the most serious injury in Truong’s career so far. In 2017, when he was playing for South Korean club Gangwon FC at K-League, a foot injury kept him out of the game for three months, resulting in a loss of form during his second year in the country.

Truong’s teammates on the national team, including midfielder Nguyen Tuan Anh and right-back Vu Van Thanh, have also struggled with the same type of injury. It also took them a long time to get back to playing.

Although Truong has not been a first choice of coach Park Hang-seo of late, he is a quality substitute on the bench and his absence will certainly affect the depth of the national team.