Coach Vu Tien Thanh: 'The referee is fairer than the Hanoi match'
On Thong Nhat Stadium, Ho Chi Minh City let Binh Dinh take the lead. In the 80th minute, from Victor Mansaray's shot, the ball touched midfielder Adriano Schmidt's hand. Initially, the referee Vu Nguyen Vu gave Ho Chi Minh City a free kick outside the penalty area. But then, from the advice of the referee, Mr. Vu changed his decision and gave Ho Chi Minh City a penalty. Striker Hoang Vu Samson successfully shot, equalizing 1-1.
"Today the referee controls justice and is braver than the Hanoi match," coach Vu Tien Thanh said. "In the Hanoi match, their opening goal was offside. My players recounted that they ran out to tell the line referee that the away team was offside, but the lineman replied that he was not. In this match, the referee team had good coordination to advise each other and obviously, the ball touched in the penalty area, the penalty was correct."
In this match, in the last minutes of the match, the striker of HCM City controlled his chest in the penalty area and was impacted by defender Adriano Schmidt from behind but did not receive a penalty. Mr. Thanh said: "It depends on the judge's judgment. But it is important that the referee dare to make his own decisions. I want to fight and give suggestions to make a better referee. Vietnam has many referees. Very good talent. Many referees called me saying they wanted to speak but couldn't."
Mr. Thanh has been the focus of attention of the V-League recently, when he repeatedly criticized the way the National Cup was organized, the referee and the VPF. Most recently, he said that the referee did not dare to catch Hanoi's fault, causing his team to lose the defending champion 1-3 in the last 5 weeks. For this statement, he was fined 10 million dong. "I don't mind being fined," Thanh said. "My opinion is that the things are good, I can't say anything when I see it wrong. I say that I have evidence, even made statistics and sent it to VFF. I am for the general development of Vietnamese football. But one thing. The referee team is really manipulated."
He then joked that he didn't criticize the referee anymore for fear of being penalized by VPF again.
Meanwhile, coach Nguyen Duc Thang of Binh Dinh had the opposite reaction to the referee's decision. "About the situation of touching or not, I did not mention, but the referee decided to take a free kick outside and then changed the decision to a penalty is a question mark," Thang said. "This kind of referee has no opinion. He stood on the field, saw the first situation and made a decision. We questioned the referee's work, the situation was not handled well."
