Gaston Merlo celebrates his goal against SLNA on Saturday. Photo thethao247.vn

Peter Cowan

They say there’s no substitute for experience, which is bad news when you only have one column under your belt, but good news if you live in Việt Nam during a pandemic.

Unfortunately, there’s no avoiding the infectious elephant in the room; COVID-19 is once again spreading, five of last weekend’s seven V.League 1 matches were postponed and the season is now on hold indefinitely.

Recent history and the health sector’s experience show we can be confident this outbreak will eventually be stamped out as well, though whether that’s in time to ensure we’ll have a ‘normal’ Tet holiday is another matter.

That being said, while there’s actual football to be discussed I’ll leave the epidemiological analysis for others with a bit more experience in that arena.

The value of experience in football was most noticeably on show in Sài Gòn FC’s 1-0 victory over Sông Lam Nghệ An (SLNA), one of the two matches played over the weekend.

The two best players on the park on Saturday boast a combined age of 75 years, some 800 club appearances around the world and more trophies than you can shake a Zimmer frame at.

Former Japanese international Daisuke Matsui was imperious in midfield, knocking the ball about with ease and showing off the occasional burst of acceleration to leave opponents far his junior in the dust.

This is the 39-year-old Matsui’s first season in Vietnamese football but the Asian Cup winner has been around the block a few times in his home country and Europe, so has settled into life in the V.League 1 comfortably.

Gaston Merlo, on the other hand, looks anything but comfortable on the pitch and every exertion seems to bring a painful wince to the 36-year-old’s face.

Looks can be deceiving though and the Argentinean scored the only goal of the game with a powerful finish after 68 minutes and ran the SLNA defence ragged most of the night.

Also unlike Matsui, Merlo has bags of V.League 1 experience and has won all there is to win in the local game with SHB Đà Nẵng, while scoring well over 150 goals in the league over two spells with the central city team and one season with Nam Định last year.

In fact, Merlo has been around Vietnamese football so long he became a naturalised citizen in 2017 and adopted the name Đỗ Merlo, leaving him with a fine name, but spurning the opportunity to become Rượu Merlo.

What is it about these two players that has allowed them to keep performing well into their thirties?

Their physical attributes might have something do with it and luck will have a played a role but above all, I think it comes down to professionalism.

In any sport, the players who have long careers are those who have talent, yes, but they also make the effort and necessary sacrifices to look after their bodies, whether that means eschewing alcohol, spending extra time in the gym or eating a good diet. In short, doing the little things.

Just like their younger teammates will be learning valuable lessons from these two wily old competitors, the powers that be in the local game could learn a thing or two from them about professionalism.

While in the end sensible decisions were taken about postponing matches in areas with confirmed COVID-19 cases, the communication around those decisions left a lot to be desired.

At one stage on Friday afternoon, SLNA’s verified Facebook page announced that the match had been postponed, but soon later the same page reported that the match would indeed be played.

The league’s own official Facebook page was, predictably, silent until 9pm that night, leaving fans in a fair bit of confusion.

Only the next morning was it revealed that the match would be held behind closed doors, presumably leaving travelling supporters in the lurch.

If the VPF (which runs the V.League 1) wants to have success and longevity similar to what Matsui and Merlo have achieved, it could do worse than following in their example and getting the little things right, like communicating properly with fans. VNS