Nguyen Trong Hung – former U22 Vietnam star at risk of being “kicked out” of Dong A Thanh Hoa
Dong A Thanh Hoa Club has just announced the list of players who will participate in the 2024/2025 season. With 38 players on the preliminary list, the Thanh Hoa team had to make the decision to remove 8 people from the official registration list.
Among the 8 eliminated faces are former Vietnamese national players such as Nguyen Trong Hung and Dinh Tien Thanh. In addition, young faces who were just registered to play in the National Super Cup and the Southeast Asian Cup C1 such as Le Anh Tuan, Nguyen Van Tiep, and Ha Minh Duc were also not included by coach Popov in the list of players participating in the 2024/2025 season.
Nguyen Trong Hung is not on the list of Dong A Thanh Hoa Club participating in the 2024/2025 season. Photo: FBNV.
For Nguyen Trong Hung, this is probably one of the saddest moments in his career. From being the most promising star of Thanh Hoa football, a star in U22 Vietnam, and then being called up to the Vietnam national team, but now, this 27-year-old midfielder has become “redundant” for Dong A Thanh Hoa, not even having a reserve position.
Nguyen Trong Hung debuted professionally in Thanh Hoa FC in early 2019. This 1m72 tall midfielder quickly won the trust of the coaching staff, despite the fact that it was a season in which the Thanh team changed 3 head coaches, from Mr. Nguyen Duc Thang, Vu Quang Bao to Mai Xuan Hop.
24 appearances in V.League 2019, including 16 starts and 3 goals, are proof of Nguyen Trong Hung’s smooth start to his career. From that promising performance, the player born in 1997 was called up by coach Park Hang-seo for training sessions with U22 Vietnam as well as the opportunity to join the Vietnam national team.
Midfielder Nguyen Trong Hung once shone for Thanh Hoa and U22 Vietnam in 2019. Photo: Hoai Thu
Nguyen Trong Hung himself is also expected by experts and the media to become the next interesting discovery after the case of Phan Van Duc in 2018. Because both have similarities from appearance to agile playing style, like to hold the ball to break through and create surprises.
Based on stable performance and potential in playing style, Nguyen Trong Hung continued to be named by coach Park Hang-seo in the list of U22 Vietnam to participate in the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines. Right in the first match given the opportunity, the player born in 1997 scored in the home team’s 6-0 victory over U19 Brunei. At this Games, U22 Vietnam won a historic gold medal after decades of waiting. Nguyen Trong Hung personally also ended 2019 successfully with a glorious title with the “Golden Star Warriors”.
However, from a perspective, Nguyen Trong Hung experienced disappointments. In the following two consecutive seasons of 2020 and 2021, this player only played exactly 4 matches for Thanh Hoa in the V.League.
Coach Nguyen Thanh Cong – who led Thanh Hoa in the 2020 season – admitted that Nguyen Trong Hung’s physique was not really good. The recovery process for the player born in 1997 was also slower than expected. Even when he returned and trained very well, bad luck still followed Nguyen Trong Hung, so he continued to sit on the sidelines watching his teammates compete for most of the two seasons mentioned above.
Midfielder Nguyen Trong Hung is going through difficult days in his career. Photo: Xuan Trang
Coming to V.League 2022 and V.League 2023, Nguyen Trong Hung began to stabilize. His knees and thigh muscles were also “obedient” so that this player could play 39 matches in V.League, 6 matches in the National Cup and 1 time in the National Super Cup. However, the contributions of this attacking midfielder in terms of goals for Thanh Hoa were very modest and did not meet the expectations of fans. He only scored 3 goals and 2 assists.
By V.League 2023/2024, Nguyen Trong Hung had only played 11 matches. He did not have any more goals or assists for the Thanh team. In addition, the 27-year-old midfielder also suffered minor injuries that made his performance not smooth.
As a result, coach Popov no longer had enough patience with Nguyen Trong Hung and decided to remove this midfielder from the list of 30 Dong A Thanh Hoa players participating in the 2024/2025 season. Perhaps, because he is a “homegrown” product and has made many contributions in the past, Nguyen Trong Hung will be retained by the team’s Board of Directors to practice and look for opportunities to return to the first team in the second leg, but it is also possible that this player born in 1997 will have to leave and look for a new destination to continue his football career, which is no longer smooth.