“Malaysia and Indonesia have become very successful with their domestic trainers,” he said, adding that domestic trainers in V-league clubs have obtained more achievement than their foreign colleagues".

“VFF has preferred to choose a foreign coach for the national squad. However, it is now high time the federation hired domestic coaches for both national and U23 teams,” Hy said.

If this happens, it will be the first time after 16 years that Vietnam has looked for a domestic coach.

The national team used to be led by domestic coaches known as Vu Van Tu, Nguyen Sy Hien and Tran Duy Long, but it was defeated right in the first round of the SEA Games in 1991 and 1993.

The failure then forced VFF to change its mind and looked for the first foreign coach, Karl Heinz Weigang from German. Under his guidance the team easily won a silver medal in SEA Games just two years later.

VFF had employed 8 other foreign coaches later since until 2004 when it replaced Brazilian trainer Edson Tavares by Vietnamese coach Tran Van Khanh after the team failed to qualify for the second round of Tiger Cup 2004. Khanh only instructed the team in one match, then handed it over to the Austrian coach, Alfred Riedl.

Three years later, VFF employed a Vietnamese coach to replace the Austrian colleague after the U23 team was defeated by Myanmar in the semi-final. Coach Mai Duc Trung, however, could not turn the tide and Vietnam was thrashed 0-5 by Singapore in the match for the third place.

When Portuguese coach resigned in March 2011, VFF considered choosing three domestic coaches for the post, namely Le Huynh Duc from SHB Danang, Phan Thanh Hung from Hanoi T&T and Mai Duc Chung from Navibank Saigon. However, they all refused. VFF finally invited Falko Goetz from Germany.

Domestic coaches are unwilling to work with VFF for many reasons. They are not treated on the same par with their foreign partners, not to mention the fact that they are paid only VND10 million per month, much lower than what they normally earn in their own clubs.

Therefore it is very difficult for VFF to choose a suitable domestic coach for the national squad.