Kubo, Cong Phuong and the pressure from media and fans

Takafusa Kubo, a Japanese football prodigy has officially landed one of the World’s biggest clubs Real Madrid this summer and paid much attention from the public.

His performance left much impression in Real Madird campaign which could be a reason to help him reach the first team in season 2019/20.

His great 45 minutes on the pitch in the battle against Bayern Munich made Japanese media praise him.

“I know what happened in my home country”- Kubo said, “everyone is blowing up out of all proportion, there is too much attention on me and I don’t like that. I just want to focus on my career”.

Kubo, 18, is mature and straightforward. He is aware of what he needs to do. All the flattery of the media seems to have been ignored by this prodigy. Kubo's message is also very clear: I don't care what you write, but don't affect me.

Talking about Kubo's story, it could be related to Cong Phuong. This is not the first time the striker has trouble with matters besides professional field.

The first match of Sint-Truidense in the Belgian league started, Cong Phuong was left on the bench and the home team lost 0-1. After the match, Sint-Truiden's fanpage received countless vulgar words from Vietnamese fans.

Negative comments of fans accidentally caused Cong Phuong to face many problems. Sint-Truiden's fans feel uneasy and don’t understand why ‘an unknown man' creates such a wave of comments like that.

Cong Phuong is the victim of those comments. They accidentally or deliberately created an aversion to Sint-Truiden's fans. Cong Phuong may also suffer from such aversion. In addition, he faced more pressure when he had to compete away from home.

Cong Phuong left Vietnam to Belgium to play, obviously he needed encouragement and support from fans, but perhaps not in this way. Phuong also faced a similar situation in Incheon. When he was not listed in the lineup, Incheon's fanpage receives countless bad comments.

Cong Phuong himself was interviewed when in Korea, that the pressure of the media in Korea is nothing compared to  Vietnam’s. At this time, perhaps Cong Phuong also needs to speak up like Kubo, let me alone to play, don't make it complicated with uncivilized support.