Coach Park ‘tired’ of managing both senior and junior teams

Park Hang-seo, who was in South Korea for a short vacation following the Asian Cup in which Vietnam entered the quarterfinals, told news agency Yonhap he was tired of managing two teams. 

"I want to select and focus on coaching one team this year.

"If I get to only manage the senior team, I will focus on our preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, and if I have to coach the U23 team, then I'll focus on the 2021 Southeast Asian Games."

The 60-year-old’s contract with the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) does require him to coach two teams.

But his desire has been acknowledged by the VFF and he will talk to officials in the next few days.

A VFF official told VnExpress: "The VFF knows that coach Park Hang-seo doesn’t want to manage multiple teams like he did in 2018. We will sit down and talk about this to find the best solution."

In Vietnam, coaching both the senior and junior teams is common practice.

Vietnam also play in the qualification round of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship, which will also double as qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The team would start training on March 6 for the qualifying event that kicks off on March 22, and his target is to qualify for the final, he said.

The team are in group K with Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand. All of the group's matches will be held in Vietnam.

At the last event in 2018 Park led Vietnam to second place after a heart-breaking 1-2 loss to Uzbekistan in the final.

He then guided Vietnam to the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup and victory in the AFF Cup.

Vietnam were scheduled to play a friendly against South Korea in March, but due to a conflict in schedule with the U23 team, the game has been postponed indefinitely.