Vietnamese Football and the Question of Those Who Come Next

On the night of January 5, 2026, in Bangkok, when the final whistle blew at Rajamangala, I sat in a commentary booth more than two thousand kilometres from the pitch and saw what I had been waiting for across seven years. Nguyen Xuan Son collapsed onto the grass, both hands covering his face. Nguyen Quang Hai stood motionless in the centre circle, his eyes fixed on the stands where red flags with the golden star were shaking in the Bangkok darkness. Vietnam had just won its second AFF Cup in history, beating Thailand 5-3 on aggregate over two legs. But what made me fall silent for four seconds on live air was not the trophy. It was the look in coach Kim Sang-sik's eyes as he stood among his players, fists clenched, neither laughing nor crying, simply watching. The pitch never lies, but memory knows how to write poetry — and on that night, memory was being rewritten by a generation different from the one I thought I belonged to.

Seven years earlier, also in January, I once sat deep in the stands at My Dinh watching the U23 team beat Qatar in the AFC U23 semi-final. Nguyen Quang Hai was twenty then, running as if the match were the last of his life. That night, snow fell in Changzhou, China — a cold that seemed to pass through the screen, across the border, down to the alleys of Hanoi. I remember writing in a short column that Vietnamese football was entering a golden season. I was right. And I was also wrong — because every golden season must one day become winter.

Now, as the Vietnamese national team closes a major cycle — from the 2026 AFF Cup under Park Hang-seo, through the quarter-finals of the 2026 Asian Cup, through the third round of 2026 World Cup qualifying where the country first touched the doorstep of football's greatest stage — the bigger question than this recent victory is: who comes next? Not next on the coaching bench, but next in the river of memory of a football nation.

I have followed Vietnamese football since I was a child sitting before a black-and-white television in Hai Phong, watching the national team lose often enough to learn the pain of a small footballing nation. Then I lived in Guangzhou, writing for Chinese readers about Asian football, and learned to see Vietnam from the outside — as an exile looking back at his homeland through a magnifying glass. What I have realised after many years is this: the pain of Vietnamese football does not lie in a lack of talent. It lies in the fact that this football nation does not know how to transfer memory between generations.

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Context: From My Dinh to Rajamangala, a Seven-Year Journey

To understand why the 2026 AFF Cup victory carries a turning-point significance, it needs to be placed in a longer context. In 2026, Vietnamese football ended a decade of silence with the U20 World Cup qualification — an achievement no other Southeast Asian nation has replicated at this level. That was the moment belief returned. In 2026, the U23 team reached the AFC U23 final and the senior team won the AFF Cup after ten years of waiting. In 2026, the team reached the Asian Cup quarter-finals. In 2026-2026, Vietnam qualified for the third round of World Cup qualifying for the first time as runners-up in the second round. According to Elo ratings, Vietnam rose from roughly 1,200 points to a peak of around 1,330 — territory it had never touched before.

But that cycle ended when Park Hang-seo left. Philippe Troussier took over and failed — not just in results but in philosophy. He wanted to move Vietnamese football to a European-style possession model while the available personnel were not ready. The team lost three consecutive World Cup 2026 qualifiers, and Troussier was dismissed. Kim Sang-sik was appointed in the midst of crisis, bringing a more pragmatic philosophy: mid-block pressing, quick transitions, exploiting set pieces, and optimising efficiency rather than pursuing a theoretical model.

When the 2026 AFF Cup kicked off in December, few dared believe in a good result. The team was missing several key players through injury. But that tournament became the place where a new generation raised its voice.

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Core Analysis: The Numbers Behind the Victory

If one looks only at the scoreline, it is easy to assume this was a championship built on inspiration. But detailed data analysis reveals a different picture — and that is the part I want to give the greatest weight to in this article.

In the group stage, Vietnam scored among the highest number of goals in the tournament, but the more notable figure lay in goals conceded — and in how the defence operated. Kim Sang-sik's defensive system rested on two elements: a midfield that dropped deep situationally, and a hybrid centre-back-midfielder capable of clearing balls before the penalty area. In this tournament, Vietnam allowed opponents significantly fewer shots than in the previous cycle, especially shots inside the box — the most dangerous zone in any modern xG model. That is a sign of tactical discipline, not luck.

The second point: the ability to exploit set pieces. Southeast Asian football has long been considered weak at free kicks due to a lack of tall centre-backs, but Vietnam turned this into a weapon. In the second leg of the final in Bangkok, the opening goal came from a carefully designed corner — the ball delivered to the second front post, a centre-back attacking it, and a third player cutting across to open space. That was a drill, not improvisation.

Nguyen Xuan Son was the most controversial figure of the tournament. A naturalised Brazilian striker, he was questioned over identity. But separating the cultural debate from the football, Son is the kind of centre-forward Vietnamese football had lacked for twenty years: a player who knows how to use his body, how to hold up play, and how to pick positions inside the box. He embodies a global trend — where player flows across borders are no longer a moral question but a tactical one.

But what makes me believe this is a new cycle, not just a solitary title, is the emergence of young faces. That is Nguyen Dinh Bac, born in 2026, who plays the kind of football Vietnamese youth football had never produced: an attacking player who controls tempo, chooses when to accelerate, knows when to hold the ball and when to release a teammate in a better position. When he came on, Vietnam played completely differently — not just because of talent, but because of thinking.

The new generation wins with its fingers, but still suffers with its heart. That is the line I keep telling Lin Hao every time we broadcast together.

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V.League and the Question of Foundations

Behind the national team's success lies a much bigger question about the V.League — the domestic championship, the cradle that produced these players.

The truth is that the V.League still lives in financial precariousness. Many clubs depend almost entirely on a single parent company, often a state-owned enterprise or a large private conglomerate. When that company faces trouble — financial, legal, or strategic change — the club immediately falls into crisis. We have seen this repeatedly: a club from champions falling to the first division within a few seasons, or worse, dissolving altogether.

The second issue is the audience. One of the biggest paradoxes of Vietnamese football is that the national team can fill My Dinh Stadium for big matches, but V.League matches often leave the stands empty — except for a few clubs with distinctive supporter cultures such as Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, or Binh Duong. This difference is not because fans lack love. It is the result of structural factors: unstable scheduling, controversial refereeing, and a lack of transparency in league governance.

This is precisely where VAR should have made a difference. But as I have long said, VAR does not reduce controversy — it merely moves controversy from the pitch into the review room and into the grey areas of the law. In the V.League, when VAR is applied, the number of cards and stoppages increases, but public satisfaction does not rise accordingly. Fans still leave the stadium feeling something was unfair, only now it is legitimised by a screen.

The third, and perhaps most important, issue is youth development. For many years, Vietnamese football has had good academies — Hoang Anh Gia Lai under businessman Duc once produced an entire generation including Cong Phuong, Xuan Truong, Tuan Anh, Van Toan, and Hong Duy. But that model rested on the personal effort of one businessman, not on a system. When Duc stepped back from his pivotal role, the academy survived but its momentum changed.

The question here, and I want to pose it seriously: can Vietnamese football create a youth development system that does not depend on the goodwill of a single wealthy individual?

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Transfers and the Flow of Money

This is also a moment to discuss the transfer market, because this is the season in which transfer movements are reshaping the V.League landscape.

One thing Vietnamese fans follow less but that is extremely important is the contract structure of players. In Vietnamese football, contracts usually contain release clauses, but these are typically negotiated in secret, not public as in Europe. This means that when a foreign club, usually from South Korea, Japan, or Thailand, wants to buy a Vietnamese player, they do not know the real price. They must work through an agent. And agents have their own interests.

The result is that many young Vietnamese talents go abroad at prices below their real value. This is not a moral story, but a market story. A transfer market that is not transparent will always undervalue its own assets.

What is encouraging is that in recent years there have been signs of change. Some clubs have begun to publish basic terms; some players have signed directly with foreign clubs without intermediaries. But for the market to mature truly, a tighter legal framework at federation level and a culture of transparency at club level are needed.

There is one thing that never appears on any transfer list: the culture of the fans. That is the greatest asset Vietnamese football has, and also the most vulnerable.

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Contrarian Angle: The Trap of Golden Memory

At this point, I want to say something that may irritate many people.

Vietnamese football is at risk of falling into the trap of its own nostalgia. We keep talking about the 2026 golden generation — Quang Hai, Cong Phuong, Dung, Van Hau, Tien Linh, Hoang Duc — as if that were the only peak this football nation could ever reach. Whenever the national team plays poorly, we return to compare with that generation. Whenever a young player emerges, we immediately ask whether he could be the 'new Quang Hai'.

This sounds harmless, but it is destructive. It turns the golden generation into an impossible standard and turns the new generation into those who walk in another's shadow.

Meanwhile, the truth is that Vietnamese football today does not need a 'new Quang Hai'. It needs a new playing style that does not depend on any individual. The 2026 generation succeeded because they had a coach who knew how to exploit their strengths, and because they played in a simple, effective system that did not ask them to do what they could not do.

The 2026-2026 generation has a different time, different personnel, different opponents. If Kim Sang-sik tried to replicate Park Hang-seo's formula, he would fail. Fortunately, he did not. He built a team on mid-block pressing, quick transitions, and defensive discipline — a style better suited to the available personnel.

But can Vietnamese football accept that difference? Are we generous enough to say that the new generation does not need to be like the old to deserve our love?

That is a question I am not sure I have an answer to.

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What I See and What I Do Not See

In commentary, there is a lesson I learned late: a good commentator is not the one who talks the most, but the one who knows when to be silent. There are moments on the pitch when any word is an insult. A player falls after a collision — that moment needs no commentary. A coach is sacked after years of service — that moment needs respect, not analysis.

Vietnamese football has been through too many such moments to keep living on commentary alone. What this football nation needs now is patience — with the young generation, with the coaches, with itself.

I do not believe the Vietnamese national team will win the World Cup within the next ten years. Nor do I believe the V.League will become a top Asian league in the short term. But I do believe something else: Vietnamese football now has a genuine opportunity to build a sustainable foundation — a youth development system that does not depend on one individual, a domestic league that does not depend on financial miracles, and a national team that does not depend on its own memory.

These things will take time. But they are feasible. And in football, feasibility is already a miracle.

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My Position When Writing These Lines

I was born in Vietnam, live in China, and write about Asian football for Chinese-speaking readers. I have two homelands and two kinds of pain. When I write about Vietnamese football, I do not write as an insider to praise, nor as an outsider to judge. I write from the position of someone standing between two cultural shadows — and that gives me a rare advantage: I can see what insiders miss because they are too familiar, and what outsiders misunderstand because they are too far.

The pitch never lies, but memory knows how to write poetry. And sometimes, the poem of a football nation is written by people who are not poets — by players running on the pitch under the rain, by coaches sitting in the dressing room with a tactics sheet soaked in sweat, by fans staying up all night in a small roadside cafe. Those are the true poets of Vietnamese football.

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About the Next Generation

There is a question I carry in my head every time I write about Vietnamese football, and I want to set it down here, not to answer but to pass on.

When the current generation of players retires — Quang Hai, Tien Linh, Dung, Hoang Duc — what will remain? Not the trophies. The trophies are already in the trophy room. What will remain is the story of a small football nation that learned to believe in itself. And that story will only matter if the next generation knows how to inherit it, read it again, and write it forward with its own feet.

Ninety minutes is an entire lifetime compressed. And in those ninety minutes, each generation has only one chance to say what it wants to say to the world. The 2026 generation has spoken. The 2026 generation is speaking. The question for us — those sitting outside the touchline, in commentary booths, on sofas before screens, or in some empty corner of a stand — is: are we listening?

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And One Last Thing

I write this on a transfer-season evening. On the screen, headlines about transfers scroll past: a Vietnamese centre-back preparing to move to South Korea, a foreign striker preparing to arrive in the V.League, a young talent weighing whether to stay or leave. These stories seem distant from the AFF Cup story I told at the beginning. But in truth, they belong to the same story.

It is the story of a football nation trying to become itself — not a copy of Europe, not a copy of Japan or Korea, but a Vietnamese football nation, with Vietnamese people, playing the Vietnamese way, carrying within itself the memory of a people too used to waiting.

Football gives us something life usually does not: the chance to see an ending while still living. Every match has a clear ending. Every season has a winner. Every generation has a match of destiny. And that is why we love football — not because it gives us answers, but because it gives us the right to ask.

The next generation of Vietnamese football will ask questions our generation does not know how to answer. That is not failure. That is a sign of life. And I, from a commentary booth two thousand kilometres from home, will sit back, fall silent at the right moment, and listen.