World Cup 4-times player joins Vietnam national team

The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) will sign a contract with Lee Won-jae, a legendary goalkeeper of Korean football. Mr. Lee will be the goalkeeper coach for the Vietnamese team at the AFF Cup 2024 and subsequent tournaments such as the Asian Cup 2027 qualifiers.

In the past, the former player born in 1973 played for the Korean national team for about 18 years. Mr. Lee Won-jae has 132 international matches for the national team, considered a legend of Korean football. The goalkeeper of Suwon Samsung Bluewings participated in 4 World Cups in 1994, 2002, 2006 and 2010. Lee Won-jae was in the K.League's best team 10 times.

He has won the Asian Cup 1 time, the K.League 4 times, won 3 Korean FA Cup titles, 4 League Cup titles, 2 Korean Super Cups and a number of other titles. As a coach, Mr. Lee has worked for the Korean national team and most recently for Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors Club.

According to the Korean press, coach Kim Sang-sik personally invited Lee Woon-jae and the former goalkeeper agreed to come to Vietnam to help his old colleague. He will start working from November 23, 2024 during the training trip of the Vietnamese team in Korea before the 2024 AFF Cup.

Coach Lee is expected to help the team's goalkeepers reach their best form before the most important tournament in 2024. Currently, the two "hard" positions in the Vietnamese team's goal belong to Nguyen Filip and Dang Van Lam. The competition for a position in the starting lineup belongs to these overseas Vietnamese goalkeepers. The number 3 goalkeeper position has many candidates such as: Nguyen Van Viet, Tran Trung Kien, Trinh Xuan Hoang or Nguyen Dinh Trieu. The final decision has not been made by Mr. Kim Sang-sik.

The Vietnamese team is in Group B of the 2024 AFF Cup with Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia. VFF assigned the target of reaching the final match to Que Ngoc Hai and his teammates.