Kim Sang Sik returns to South Korea after his father's death: A one-week gap before ASEAN Cup 2026

The news arrived on a day without a match. No whistle, no scoreline, no roaring stands. Only a short statement from the Vietnam Football Federation running across the wires: head coach Kim Sang Sik had departed for South Korea, after his father passed away. The elderly man was 84, after a long battle with illness. In that statement, one reads the words of the Vietnam Football Federation President sent to the Korean coach: go home, be with your family, and may you and your loved ones find the strength to endure this immense loss. Not a word about results. Not a sentence about points. Only empathy, and a silence that was respected. One week. That is the expected length of his absence. When he returns to Vietnam, ASEAN Cup 2026 will be less than ten days away. Amid a scoreboard that holds no numbers yet, people are forced to speak of a gap. The scoreboard cannot reflect the heart, and football writes its poetry in those places. A YEAR AND A HALF OF DEVOTION, AND A TOURNAMENT WAITING The Vietnam national team sits in Group A, alongside Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan. The opening day is September 24, and the final group match takes place on October 5. During that window, every training session carries its own weight, every drill is measured. Coach Kim Sang Sik took charge in May 2026. Over more than a year, he has poured almost all of his energy into the job, guiding both the U23 side and the senior national team through regional and continental competitions with results the experts have assessed positively. People speak of him as a diligent, quiet coach who always puts work first. Perhaps that is why, when he quietly boarded the plane, no one felt it was a desertion, but a return. In football, a coach stepping away for a few days for personal reasons is not rare. What matters is the timing. The period before a major tournament is the sprint phase, when everything must be locked in: the squad, the game plan, the personnel, and the spirit. One week in that phase may not change the nature of a team, but it can leave small ripples, and small ripples are sometimes what decide tightly balanced matches. WHAT DOES ONE WEEK MEAN In Southeast Asian national football, pre-tournament camps are usually compressed into short windows. Players arrive from different clubs, with uneven fitness and form. The coaching staff must get to know each of them, test options, and select a framework. One week is not a small number. It is enough time to assemble a tactical system, to test a new centre-back pairing, to shape set-piece routines. It is also enough time for what is not finished to remain unfinished. At the highest level, the difference between a complete team and an incomplete one sometimes lies in the final few sessions. The question that arises is: during that window, who sets the rhythm of training? The statement does not say. The coaching staff may have arranged a division of duties, which would be reasonable in a professional environment. But delegation cannot fully replace the presence of the leader. A good assistant is still not the head coach. They are not given the authority to make major decisions about personnel and style, nor to sign off on the final list. This does not mean Vietnam will face a crisis. It only means there is a gap, and every gap needs to be filled. On a quiet night at the ground, I hear the breath of the ball. The ball does not know why someone is absent. It only knows to roll the way it has been taught. THE SCHEDULE AND THE NUMBERS THAT CANNOT BE IGNORED Look at the calendar. ASEAN Cup 2026 kicks off on September 24. Vietnam plays its first group match, and if all goes to plan, will aim to advance from the group. Group A with Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan is considered a moderately competitive group. Thailand is the main rival; the other two are rated lower in terms of personnel. Squad indices show Vietnam's roster draws mostly on the domestic league. The squad value is mid-range for the region, below Thailand but above the Philippines and Pakistan. The team's strength lies in cohesion and tactical discipline rather than individual stars. If one counts from the expected date of Kim Sang Sik's return to the opening match, the remaining preparation window falls at roughly ten days. Ten days is enough for the final tactical sessions, enough for internal practice matches, and enough to finalise the squad. But ten days is also a tight window if the preceding weeks have been interrupted. Compared with other coaches in the region: most national teams enter the sprint phase with a full coaching staff and an unbroken block of time. That makes the absence, even of just one week, of the Vietnam head coach a notable variable in the wider picture. A DIFFERENT ANGLE: WHAT IS RARELY SAID People usually look only at the professional dimension when discussing a coach's absence. But there is another dimension rarely mentioned, and it may be no less important: the psychology of the coach himself. Losing one's father is a major event in a person's life. When he returns to Vietnam after a week attending to funeral rites, he will carry a different state of mind than the one before he boarded the plane. That is natural, and there is nothing to deny. The question is not whether he is sad, but how that sadness will affect his work. In sports psychology, this is called distraction through loss. It can cause a coach to be a beat slower in decisions, to lose sharpness in video analysis sessions, or simply to become more reserved in team meetings. But there is another possibility, one not everyone considers: sadness sometimes becomes fuel. Many athletes and coaches, when facing loss, pour all their focus into work as a way to confront and overcome it. If Kim Sang Sik chooses that path, his return could carry a different kind of energy. No one can predict this in advance. It is individual. That is why purely technical analysis of this absence will always be missing a piece. People do not operate like a tactical diagram. THE REACTION OF THE TEAM AND THE ORGANISATION Another notable point is how the Vietnam Football Federation handled the situation. Their response was swift, clear, and empathetic. The Federation President personally sent words of encouragement, urging Kim Sang Sik to return home. This is a way of acting that shows maturity in governance. In international football, not every federation handles personal situations so thoroughly. In some places, performance pressure makes leadership hesitate, or even obstructs a coach at sensitive moments. The Vietnam Football Federation placing the human factor ahead of the professional one shows a healthy working relationship. For the players, the impact may run in two directions. On one hand, they may feel anxious about the disruption to preparation. On the other, they may play with higher spirits, as a way of sharing the burden with their coach. In football, a team playing for its manager is not an unfamiliar thing. RISK AND HOW TO SEE IT If this event is placed on a risk assessment grid, the main risks are: a disruption to pre-tournament preparation, the potential psychological impact on in-tournament decisions, and the risk of an extended absence should funeral arrangements prove more complex than expected. On the first risk, the level is assessed as medium. The coaching staff can maintain training sessions, and the remaining window after the head coach returns is still enough to finalise the last plans. On the second risk, the level is assessed as low, but the potential impact is high. If the psychology is affected at a decisive moment, the consequences may be greater than people imagine. However, this is an uncontrollable factor and should not be dissected excessively. On the third risk, the level is assessed as low. Traditional Korean funerals usually last a few days, and the one-week window expected by the Vietnam Football Federation is reasonable. ON WHAT WAS PREPARED IN ADVANCE One possibility deserves consideration: Kim Sang Sik's father was 84 and had been battling illness for some time. That means the family had a certain psychological preparation for the worst case. In psychology, this state is called anticipatory grief. People begin to mourn before the loss actually occurs. This does not lessen the pain, but it can help those involved arrange their personal affairs more actively. It is possible that Kim Sang Sik's swift departure partly reflects that he had some psychological preparation. This is only a conjecture, and conjecture should not be pushed further into conclusion. THE RIVALS IN GROUP A Thailand is the highest-rated rival in the group. This team possesses many players competing abroad and has a strong physical foundation. The match between Vietnam and Thailand will likely decide the group's top spot. The Philippines and Pakistan are considered lighter opponents. However, in regional football, the gap in standards between teams is narrowing. Matches against lower-rated opponents are sometimes the hardest, because the pressure to win makes mistakes more costly. Preparing for these matches demands intense focus. That is why every training session in the sprint window matters, and why a one-week absence of the head coach draws such attention. WHAT COMES NEXT When Kim Sang Sik returns to Vietnam, people will watch the first signals: the training sessions, the statements, and most importantly, how he appears at the opening match. Those signals will show what trace the absence left, if any. Fans may hope for a focused return. The media may hope for some answer about his state of mind. But there is one thing both should grant him: respect. One week to bid farewell to a father is a week that no group table has the right to demand. Football is a game of numbers, but it is played by people. And people, sometimes, must set the match aside to do more important things. When the radio goes on air at midnight, the pitch sleeps quietly, and football knows how to wait. CONCLUSION Vietnam will enter ASEAN Cup 2026 with a head coach who has just endured a great loss. That does not make the team weaker, nor does it automatically make it stronger. It is simply part of the story. What happens on the pitch will be decided by training sessions, by tactical decisions, and by moments no one anticipates. As for what happens inside that coach's heart, perhaps only he and his family know. They call me a dreamer. But the ball has never hidden anything from me. And what the ball has shown me this time is not a scoreline, but a gap. That gap will be filled, or it will not, in the days to come. Let us wait. Sometimes waiting is also a form of respect.