HÀ NỘI — Assistant coach to Park Hang-seo Lee Young-jin will be in charge of the U22 team at the upcoming Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in the Philippines in November, the Việt Nam Football Federation (VFF) has announced.

Lee has travelled with Park to all the national teams’ events since the South  Korean took charge.

The VFF considered carefully the decision in light of a busy schedule for this year: Việt Nam will compete in the U23 Asian qualifiers for 2020, the World Cup 2022 qualifiers and the SEA Games.

In principle, Park will lead all the national teams to compete in the three events. However, because the World Cup 2022 qualifiers and the SEA Games are both in November, Park will delegate to get the most out of the two teams.

Although Park doesn’t coach the U22 team directly, he will be advising Lee throughout the qualifiers.

Lee began his football career in 1986. He was part of the South Korea team that competed at the in World Cup 1990 and 1994.

In 1997, Lee was player-manager for Anyang LG Cheetahs and then FC Seoul.

In 2015, Le led Daegu FC in the K.League.

Lee and his compatriot Park have gained success with Việt Nam coming second place at the AFC U23 Championship 2018, reaching the semi-finals of the Asian Games 2018, winning the AFF Suzuki Cup 2018 and reaching the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup 2019.

Thanks to his contributions, the Vietnamese Government awarded Lee a Labour Order, Third Class, last year. — VNS