Velizar Popov's time as Thể Công Viettel FC manager came to an abrupt end on Saturday, as he left the club after a 3-1 defeat to Thép Xanh Nam Định. — VNA/VNS Photo Tuấn Phạm

Anh Đức

In March last year, when Velizar Popov left Thanh Hóa after a 10-match winless run, I wrote in this column that it would not be the end of his Vietnamese adventure and wondered what he might achieve with a star-studded squad. Within two months, the first part had come true. Now, 18 months on, the second part has a far less flattering answer.

On Saturday night, shortly after a 3-1 defeat to Thép Xanh Nam Định at Thiên Trường Stadium, Thể Công Viettel announced that Popov had left his post, thanking him briefly for his contributions.

Attacker Wesley Nata had even given the visitors the lead, and reports suggest the board had demanded a win. The next victory never came, and the team have not won since the opening day of the season, when they secured a 2-0 win over Đồng Nai..

Since then, there have been eight matches in all competitions, with two draws and six defeats. Those results include a 3-1 home loss to Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh, a 1-0 defeat in Bandung, Indonesia, and, most damningly, a 5-0 thrashing by newly crowned Korean champions FC Seoul at Hàng Đẫy last Wednesday.

With Việt Nam's most decorated football club sitting 12th with four points from six rounds, it was inevitable that Popov would lose his job.

Even his final week carried a familiar flavour: after the Seoul defeat, he pointed out that the national team itself had once lost 6-0 to South Korea. It was a fair point about the gap between the two footballing nations, but not one that fans wanted to hear from the man in charge.

His time at Thể Công Viettel began in style, with a 6-0 rout of SHB Đà Nẵng on his debut. Last season, he took the club into continental competition and a National Cup semi-final, all while fighting a running battle with officials.

In April, he hurled his accreditation badge after a stoppage-time row, earning a four-match ban and a VNĐ20 million (US$780) fine. In late May, he vowed to leave the V.League and never come back. He stayed. In the end, the decision was made for him, not by referees, but by results.

What went wrong? It would be unfair to pin it all on one man. Thể Công have juggled league and Asian fixtures with national team call-ups, and like every V.League side, they had virtually no break between seasons after the ASEAN Championship swallowed the summer.

But there is a pattern worth noting. Popov’s methods, a punishing physical regime and relentless high pressing, transformed an unfancied Thanh Hóa into two-time National Cup winners..

They also seem to come with a shelf life. Both of his Vietnamese spells followed the same arc: a dramatic rise, then a long winless run, with 10 matches at Thanh Hóa and eight at Thể Công.

A style built on intensity asks everything of players, but when legs and belief tire, there is little else to fall back on. Every ounce of energy spent at war with officials, too, is energy not spent on the team.

When he left Thanh Hóa, Popov wrote that in life, as in football, nothing lasts forever. He has been proven right again.

I will stand by what I wrote 18 months ago, with one amendment. This need not be the end of Popov in Vietnamese football. Whichever club hires him next will get a meticulous tactician and a fierce motivator. The trick will be helping him leave the fury at the touchline door.

The V.League will certainly be quieter without him. I am not sure it will be better. — VNS