Kim Sang Sik Returns to South Korea After His Father's Death: A One-Week Gap in Vietnam's Preparation

On August 20, a short notice appeared on the official channel of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF): head coach Kim Sang Sik had returned to South Korea after his father passed away. The elder Kim was 84 and had been ill for some time. In the statement, the VFF President offered deep condolences to the Korean manager and his family, and encouraged him to return home to complete the funeral rites.

Behind that line of text lies a silence. One week. Perhaps seven days, perhaps fewer, perhaps longer if Korean funeral customs extend. And during that span, on the training ground of Vietnam's national team, the man who usually stands at the centre of every session will be absent.

I read this notice on a morning in Busan, where I have lived for nearly two decades. Outside the window, the sky was grey like every morning of Korea's rainy season. I made a cup of coffee, sat down, and thought about a week-long gap. To someone who has spent a lifetime searching for a sense of belonging through matches, such gaps always deserve a closer look rather than a passing glance.

Kim Sang Sik took charge of Vietnam's national team in May 2026. In the more than a year since, he has carried two roles simultaneously: the senior national team and the U23 side. This approach is not new in Southeast Asia. It saves money, it preserves continuity in philosophy, and it makes one man the centre of nearly every technical decision.

The VFF credits him with guiding both teams to "good results in regional and continental competitions." That is the diplomatic language of a press release, but it also reflects a reality: Kim Sang Sik is currently the figure on whom Vietnamese football's machinery places the most expectation.

The upcoming tournament is the ASEAN Cup 2026, running from September 24 to October 5. Vietnam sits in Group A with Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan. In that group, Thailand is the biggest rival. The Philippines and Pakistan are names any side seeking a place in the next round must overcome. This is not a group of death, but it is not a group to sleep through either.

A one-week gap in the pre-tournament period - when every session is measured in hours and every tactical drill is scheduled to the minute - is a gap worth discussing. Not to dramatize everything, but to understand more clearly how a national team operates when its leader is absent.

The first thing to state clearly: Kim Sang Sik's one-week absence is not the greatest threat to Vietnam at the ASEAN Cup 2026. But it is not trivial either. It is a very specific form of risk - a technical risk occurring right in the window when Southeast Asian national teams typically pack in the entire tactical load.

In Southeast Asian football, national teams do not get the long gatherings of European sides. They usually assemble in short bursts, sometimes only ten days to two weeks before each set of fixtures. In that short burst, everything must be crammed in: the defensive system, set-piece routines, pressing schemes, transition patterns. A missed session is not merely a missed session - it is a session the entire staff spent hours preparing a lesson plan for.

If Kim Sang Sik is absent precisely during the week when the staff planned to run video analysis sessions for the whole squad, or to build set-piece routines, then the damage is not that "no one is in charge" - assistants can handle that. It is that the man with the final say is not present to see how players respond, who picks up quickly, who is still hesitating. Personnel decisions then rest on absent data.

This is the point I want to stress: the value of a head coach during a preparation week is not in the tactical lectures - it is in the process of observation and adjustment. Assistants can set up the formation. Only the leader has the authority to change the plan based on what his eyes and ears tell him.

On the data side, a few facts are worth recording. First, the expected absence is about one week, per the official statement. Second, the tournament kicks off on September 24. Third, Vietnam plays in Group A with Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan. If Kim returns on schedule, he has about ten days before the first match. Ten days is not much, but it is not a number that should cause panic either. It is a period in which a professional coaching staff can work, provided the plan is already prepared and the assistants know the lesson plan well.

There is one detail the statement does not make clear: who will run the sessions in Kim's stead this week. Professional football has implicit processes - the first assistant takes over, the tactical assistant handles the lesson plan, the analysis department sends reports remotely. But the absence of the leader always leaves a grey zone, and that grey zone usually only shows itself when the team walks into a real match.

I have followed Southeast Asian national teams long enough to recognize one thing: that grey zone rarely appears in the early group-stage matches. It appears in knockout ties, when every small detail - a defensive shape, a contingency plan when trailing - becomes the deciding factor.

Then there is another aspect, rarely mentioned. Kim Sang Sik is not only the head coach of the national team. He also leads the U23 side. One man carrying two roles creates a concentration of power, but also a bottleneck. When that man is absent, both work streams have to wait. In football nations with a complete youth development structure, this is not a problem - because the U23 side has its own coaching staff and its own philosophy. In many Southeast Asian football nations, everything still revolves around one figure.

This leads me to a question about structure, not about Kim Sang Sik as an individual.

Here I must speak against the usual reflex: Vietnam's biggest risk this week is not losing a week of training - it is the assumption that the team can run smoothly without its leader.

Many will say: "What's one week, the assistants still work." True. But that is only true if the assistants genuinely grasp Kim's philosophy in detail. In football, copying a formation is not hard. Copying a decision-making style is. When the match unfolds and things break down, assistants tend to be more conservative - they choose the safe option, they hesitate to make substitutions, they avoid risk.

This is the blind spot of teams dependent on one individual. It is not that they lack a contingency plan - it is that the contingency plan is usually less flexible.

But I must also be honest: I cannot be sure how large the real impact of this week will be. If the staff has a plan detailed to each session, if the senior assistants truly understand the philosophy, if the key players already know the system well, then a week could pass without anyone noticing. Football is like that: we usually only notice a coach's absence when the team loses a match it should have won.

And there is another direction I want to mention, though it is more psychological than tactical. Vietnam's players, many of whom have stood beside Kim Sang Sik for over a year, will know about his family matters. In team sports, the feeling of "playing for each other" and "playing for the teacher" is real. It can produce a more focused week of training, a small but genuine motivation. This cannot be quantified by any index. Tears on a keyboard are as salty as tears on the pitch - and sometimes, those very tears are what binds a collective together.

So, rather than guessing what Vietnam loses in this week, perhaps the worthier question is: should a national team depend on one person so much that his absence, even for just seven days, becomes something people must discuss?

I do not write to be agreed with. I write to awaken a question that has dozed off. And I write in respect for a man bearing a pain no league table can measure.

When Kim Sang Sik returns to Vietnam, the team will play its first match at the ASEAN Cup 2026 on September 24. I will watch that match not to find fault, but to see something simpler: whether a week-long gap leaves any trace.

Perhaps it will. Perhaps not. Football has always lived in the space between two words: "perhaps."