Midfielder Thuy Trang retires from the Vietnamese women's team
"I decided after the end of the 2023 World Cup, but I have not been able to say it. Now is the right time to announce this," Thuy Trang shared with MetaSports on the afternoon of August 10.
A day earlier, the Vietnamese women's team announced a list of 25 players summoned to prepare for ASIAD 2023 taking place in September in China. While Huynh Nhu was busy negotiating a new contract with Lank FC, Thuy Trang was not summoned without a specific reason. However, the 34-year-old midfielder insists that his retirement from the team is not due to sulking, but feels it is time to stop and let the youth develop. "Since before the list was announced, I talked to the leaders of the HCM City club that if there was a name, I would also not join the team," she added.
Thuy Trang is a special case of Vietnamese women's football. She is the only one in her family of nine brothers in Ai Nghia town (Dai Loc, Quang Nam) to engage in sports when she passed the HCM City University of Physical Education and Sports. During her time studying, she attended student futsal tournaments in Ho Chi Minh City. After graduating, Thuy Trang competed in both 11-player and futsal. In 2010, she was added to the list of Ho Chi Minh City to compete for the national futsal tournament and then won a bronze medal with her teammates. In 2011, she was called to the Vietnamese futsal team, competing in SEA Games 26 (won silver medal) and SEA Games 27 (gold medal).
In 2014, at the age of 26, Thuy Trang was called to the national women's football team. Thanks to her enthusiasm, hard work and high expertise, she quickly became a mainstay, also known by her teammates as "The One Without Lungs". After 11 years of professional competition, the midfielder born in 1988 has won the national championship seven times, won the National Cup three times, won a gold and two silver medals at the National Sports Congress, won the 2019 AFF Cup, won four SEA Games gold medal. In 2022, Thuy Trang also won the Silver Ball and was one of the 12 typical faces of Ho Chi Minh City.
On the team's journey to win tickets to the World Cup, through the 2022 Asian Cup in India in February 2022, Thuy Trang's mark was huge. Before the tournament, a series of key players infected with Covid-19, even only six of them flew to India as planned, making the team at times in danger of dropping out of the tournament. After passing the group stage, Vietnam lost 1-3 to China in the quarterfinals and had to attend the play-off round with Thailand and Taiwan. Thuy Trang is a few healthy players, playing from the beginning and making a great contribution to the gameplay. On the eve of the 2023 Women's World Cup, FIFA once commented that Thuy Trang is one of the five most worthy players in Vietnam today, alongside goalkeeper Kim Thanh, midfielder Bich Thuy, strikers Thanh Nha and Huynh Nhu.
However, she is one of the few players who have not been on the field for a minute in three group stage matches (lost to the US 0-2, Portugal 0-2 and the Netherlands 0-7). After returning from New Zealand, Thuy Trang shared that she was very sad and wished to play even for a second, but respected every decision of the Coaching Board.
Recently, Thuy Trang received an offer from Lank FC, but preferred to stay and play for the HCM City club when the contract expires this year. She has not yet determined whether she will continue to play or retire after that. Due to the low remuneration from women's football, Thuy Trang used to work as a referee in the movement tournaments to earn extra income to cover her life and send it back to her hometown to help her family. Currently, she still has many screws in her body as a result of surgery due to trauma.
