New England Revolution’s Lee Nguyen made mark in Vietnam

By Mike Scandura, Mass Live

FOXBOROUGH – New England Revolution  fans voted midfielder Lee Nguyen  the team’s MVP in 2012.

Revolution midfielder Lee Nguyen

But that accolade paled in comparison with the adulation he received when he played 1½ seasons in the Vietnamese Super League .

Nguyen hadn’t even completed the 2009 season with Hoang Anh Gia Lai when Dan Ong  magazine, Vietnam’s equivalent of GQ, published a cover story on him.

At season’s end, the fans voted Nguyen the second-best player in the country in a league poll.

How do you spell superstar?

“The reception I got when I came over there was overwhelming,” Nguyen said during a break from a recent practice. “I didn’t expect that. Coming over to play in Europe already was a big thing because soccer’s big there, so you’re well-recognized in Holland and Denmark.

“But it wasn’t to the extent that it was in Vietnam. I stepped off a plane and everybody knew who I was.”

Nguyen was born in Richardson, Texas, to Michelle and Pham Nguyen and eventually obtained Vietnamese as well as American citizenship. But initially he wasn’t fluent in the language of his parents.

“I could understand a little bit of it because my parents spoke it in the house,” he said. “I always understood when they were talking, but my sister and I spoke in English.

“Along the way I lost it. But once I got over to Vietnam, I was able to understand it and was able to pick up the language really quick. It was nice to be able to pick it up that quickly, especially because they don’t speak English.”

Nguyen followed a long and winding road that eventually ended in New England in March 2012.

He was awarded a scholarship to NCAA Division I power Indiana, where in 2005 he was voted the National Freshman of the Year. After one season, he signed with PSV in Eindhoven, Holland.

Read the full article by Mike Scandura from Mass Live.