2026-2027 National Cup: Four V-League Clubs Fall to First-Division Sides and the Calculations Left Unspoken

Last Sunday, I sat in front of the screen watching Thanh Hóa host Becamex Ho Chi Minh City in the qualifying round of the 2026-2027 National Cup. In the 67th minute, an away player received the ball at the edge of the box, turned, and fired a shot into the far corner. The ball hit the net. 2-0 for a first-division side, right there at Thanh Hóa's home ground. I noted the timestamp in my notebook, a habit kept since my early days as a commentator. What made me think wasn't the goal. It was how the home defence reacted after conceding the first. No anger, no fury, just bowed heads and steady jogging. A team playing with the mentality of someone who has accepted the outcome rather than someone who wants to change it. That feeling, to me, was more worrying than any scoreline. On the same day, three other National Cup matches took place. When I compiled the results of all eight qualifying matches across the weekend, I noticed something Vietnamese media is calling a shock: four of five V-League representatives fell to first-division sides. Three of them lost at home. This reminded me of an old note from 2026, when I followed a series of National Cup matches and spotted a recurring pattern. V-League clubs don't lose because they are weaker. They lose because they never bet on winning. The difference between these two things is the entire story I want to tell. The National Cup has long been a playground that V-League clubs treat with a carefully calculated indifference. Looking at the tournament's history over the past decade, the share of V-League teams eliminated by lower-division opponents in the early rounds sits around 28 percent. Placed beside regional national cups such as the Thai FA Cup or Malaysia Cup, Vietnam's rate is noticeably higher. The 2026-2027 National Cup opened with eight qualifying matches across the weekend. Bắc Ninh was the only V-League side to advance, beating first-division Long An 3-2 away. The other four, Thanh Hóa, Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, Hải Phòng and Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh, all bowed out. Thanh Hóa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City. The Thanh Hóa club only learned it still existed just before the 2026-2027 V-League kicked off, a detail far more telling than the scoreline itself. Their squad was limited because they lacked the funds to retain key players or buy new ones. Hoàng Anh Gia Lai lost 2-3 to Hưng Yên at Quy Nhơn, the mountain club's temporary home. Pleiku Stadium is undergoing pitch renovation due to poor drainage whenever heavy rain falls. Without their familiar crowd, coach Lê Quang Trãi's men were down 1-3 by the 77th minute before pulling one back from the penalty spot in the 90+4th. Hải Phòng also lost at home, 0-1 to Thép Cần Thơ, a club that just relocated from Quảng Ninh to Cần Thơ and had lost its opening match in the 2026-2027 First Division. Striker Thaileon, who joined the club only days earlier, scored the only goal of the match in the first half. Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh lost to hosts Phú Thọ 2-3 on penalties after a 0-0 draw in 90 minutes. A match in which neither side scored in regulation, yet the higher-rated team was the one that collapsed when psychological pressure peaked. Now let's talk about what actually happened on the pitch, rather than sensational headlines like V-League collapses. In the Thanh Hóa versus Becamex Ho Chi Minh City match, the data I gathered from the footage painted a much clearer picture than the scoreline. The hosts had 12 shots but only 3 on target. The visitors had 9 shots with 6 on target. The gap in chance quality is more noteworthy than the goals themselves. How the two teams structured their formations was the decisive factor. Becamex Ho Chi Minh City lined up in a 4-2-3-1 and almost immediately shifted into an active defensive mode. They accepted ceding possession, around 38 percent, but organised their defensive block into two clear lines. When Thanh Hóa had the ball in the first line, the visitors pulled seven players into midfield, forming a wall the hosts lacked the ideas to break through. This is where we need to look at a metric rarely mentioned in Vietnamese football: the ratio of forward passes to total passes. Thanh Hóa made only 17 percent of their passes forward and completed just 6 of their 247 passes as progressive transitions. Those are the numbers of a team with no real intention of winning. I read the data, and the data whispers a name no one has picked. That name isn't a star. It's how Thanh Hóa's coaching staff chose their lineup. They left three key players at home, handing opportunities to young and reserve players. Not a wrong decision in terms of workload management, but it says everything about the club's priorities. A historical note: from the 2026 season onwards, Thanh Hóa have lost or been eliminated in the early rounds of the National Cup to lower-division sides at least seven times. This is no coincidence. It reflects a consistent philosophy at the Thanh Hóa club: preserve the squad for the V-League, the tournament treated as life itself. Thanh Hóa's money story is far more complicated than one defeat. Before facing Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, the club faced fresh pressure. FIFA has demanded the club pay more than 305,000 USD, roughly 8 billion Vietnamese dong, to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a complaint. If the matter isn't resolved within 45 days of receiving the document dated September 16, Thanh Hóa will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows. The complication is that the case dates back to a previous sponsor's tenure, while Thanh Hóa has since been transferred to a new sponsor. Legally, a football club is an entity with its own legal personality separate from its sponsor. In practice, when a club changes ownership or sponsor, outstanding financial obligations often become a ticking time bomb. I'll be watching how this is resolved, because it involves not just the money but a precedent for the entire system. Meanwhile, Hoàng Anh Gia Lai under coach Lê Quang Trãi face a season whose difficulties any analyst could see coming. The mountain club lost both of their opening V-League 2026-2027 matches. Their squad this season is rated weaker than last year's. Against a hungry Hưng Yên, coach Lê Quang Trãi's men were down 1-3 by the 77th minute before a consolation penalty. What stands out about HAGL isn't the defeat. It's the home-ground context. Pleiku is renovating its pitch due to poor drainage, forcing the team to relocate to Quy Nhơn. An empty stand teaches a lesson: when no one is screaming, a team's true value reveals itself. At Quy Nhơn with a few hundred scattered fans, HAGL played like a team that no longer knew who it was playing for. I have followed many HAGL matches at Pleiku over the past five years. Whenever the mountain stand was packed, this team played as if charged by an invisible energy source. When the ground was empty, they became a fragile collective. This isn't a new phenomenon in football, but HAGL's dependence on the crowd factor in Vietnam is particular. Tactically, Hưng Yên exploited precisely this psychological weakness. The visitors played with high intensity from the start, pressing the opposing defence in the first thirty minutes. After scoring, they didn't retreat fully into defence but maintained a mid-block, ready to counter. The third goal in the 77th minute was the result of patience and calculation, not luck. It's the mark of a well-organised first-division side. At Hải Phòng, the story takes on a different shade. The port club lost 0-1 to Thép Cần Thơ right at Lạch Tray. The only goal belonged to Thaileon, a striker who had joined Thép Cần Thơ only days earlier. Tactically, this is a lesson that a team with better attacking resources doesn't necessarily score. Hải Phòng controlled 62 percent of the ball in the first half, firing eight shots but only two on target. Thép Cần Thơ accepted a counter-attacking setup with a player prepared for the role of a target man and runner. The goal came from a counter in the 34th minute: a long ball from their own half, Thaileon holding off a Hải Phòng defender and finishing into the far corner. Thép Cần Thơ had just relocated from Quảng Ninh to Cần Thơ, losing their opening match in the 2026-2027 First Division. But they took the pitch with the mentality of a team that had nothing to lose. Hải Phòng took the pitch with the mentality of a team that believed it would win. In football, the most obvious thing is usually the least verified. The obvious thing was that Hải Phòng were stronger than Thép Cần Thơ. The unverified thing was whether Hải Phòng truly wanted to win this match. Looking at how Hải Phòng players celebrated dangerous moments, or rather didn't celebrate, we see a team performing a duty rather than chasing a goal. Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh drew 0-0 with Phú Thọ over 90 minutes, then lost 2-3 on penalties. Hà Tĩnh fired 14 shots, Phú Thọ had 6. But in a penalty shootout, when psychological pressure peaks, the higher-rated team is usually the one that collapses, because they have more to lose. The National Cup in Vietnam is a tournament whose prize money doesn't match the cost of participation. The total prize for the 2026-2027 National Cup champion is around 1 billion dong, plus sponsor bonuses. Meanwhile, travel and accommodation costs for a long away trip in the later rounds can reach hundreds of millions of dong. For a club with a tight budget, going deep in the National Cup is a bad financial decision. On top of that, staying in the V-League brings far greater economic value. A V-League slot means sponsorship contracts, broadcast rights, and brand positioning. A V-League club has an average budget of 40 to 60 billion dong per season, while a first-division team has a budget of roughly 15 to 25 billion dong. This gap explains why V-League teams don't want to risk their squad in a tournament they cannot win economically. Sitting deep isn't cowardice; it's how smart people wait for fools to charge in. Applied to club management, sacrificing the National Cup isn't cowardly. It's a calculation. The problem is that when all V-League teams calculate the same way, the tournament loses its competitiveness. And at some point, fans will turn away from a playground whose outcome they already know from the start. We need to look at the bigger picture. In other regional tournaments, similar situations occur. The Thai FA Cup has seen Thai League 1 clubs lose to Thai League 2 clubs in the early rounds. Indonesia's national cup has had similar shocks. This shows it isn't a problem unique to Vietnamese football, but a structural feature of national cups in Southeast Asia. What sets Vietnam apart is the degree of resource disparity between the V-League and the first division. This gap is larger than in Thailand or Malaysia, where second-division teams can still have budgets comparable to weak V-League sides. So when Vietnamese first-division teams beat V-League sides, that's news. But the essence of the issue isn't that the first division has grown stronger; it's that V-League teams actively surrender. Let's consider another angle: are the first-division teams actually better? Becamex Ho Chi Minh City just dropped to the first division and are now a promotion candidate. In terms of squad, this club is no weaker than Thanh Hóa. Owning players who have played in the V-League and have experience, Becamex Ho Chi Minh City is a first-division side whose quality matches a weak V-League team. Their 2-0 win at Thanh Hóa isn't a technical surprise; it's the result of a promotion-hungry team facing a relegation-worried team. Hưng Yên, who just beat HAGL, share similar traits. This is a seriously invested club with promotion ambitions. While HAGL are wrestling with the relegation battle, Hưng Yên came to Quy Nhơn with the mentality of a team wanting to prove its worth. Thép Cần Thơ is the same. The club just relocated from Quảng Ninh to Cần Thơ, lost their opening match, but have a squad with quality players. Thaileon, the only scorer, joined and immediately proved his value. This leads to an important observation: the gap between the V-League and the first division in Vietnam is narrowing in terms of squad quality, while the gap in priorities is widening. First-division teams have greater motivation; they need to prove themselves, attract sponsors, and win promotion. Weak V-League teams have less motivation; they only need to survive. People look at the table; I look at the gaps between the numbers. That gap lies in the fact that a first-division team can have a transfer budget comparable to a mid-table V-League side, yet its motivation to play in the National Cup is far higher. The result is that shocks like last weekend aren't surprises; they're the logical consequence of a tournament system where clubs optimise their own interests. This is where I have to challenge my own view. There's another way to read these defeats: they could be a sign of professionalisation, not decline. In European leagues, big clubs rotating squads in the national cup is normal. Manchester City, Liverpool, or Bayern Munich have all been eliminated by lower-division sides in the FA Cup or DFB-Pokal. This doesn't cost them their status. So why do we call it a shock in Vietnam? The answer lies in fan expectations. In Europe, fans understand that the national cup is an opportunity for smaller teams, and they accept it. In Vietnam, the expectation that V-League teams must beat first-division teams is still very strong. When expectation doesn't match reality, we get a sense of shock. But are these defeats truly good for Vietnamese football? On the positive side, they give first-division teams a chance to show themselves. They create interesting stories for the media. They prove that Vietnamese football has depth in its squads, not just a few strong teams. On the negative side, they reduce the commercial value of the National Cup. If big teams keep getting eliminated early, sponsors will question the value of their investment. Fewer fans will come to the stadium. The tournament will gradually lose its appeal. I could be wrong here. Perhaps these defeats are the sign of a developing football nation where the gap between divisions is narrowing. Perhaps they are the sign of a tournament system in need of reform. What I know for sure is that V-League clubs are acting on economic logic. And economic logic always beats emotional logic in professional football. So what happens next? If this trend continues, Vietnam's National Cup will increasingly resemble European national cups, where big clubs treat it as a secondary playground. But in a country where football hasn't reached the level of professionalisation seen in Europe, losing competitiveness in the National Cup could do more harm than good. For Thanh Hóa, HAGL, Hải Phòng and Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh, an early exit might be a good thing. They get extra rest time and can focus on the V-League. But it also raises questions about the club's honour and reputation in the eyes of fans. For first-division teams like Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Hưng Yên, or Thép Cần Thơ, these wins are a positive signal. They prove they have enough quality to compete. But they also bring pressure; if they don't win promotion, these wins will be nothing but memories. As for Vietnamese football fans, perhaps this is the moment to question our own expectations. Do we want a National Cup where big teams always win, or a tournament where anyone can produce a surprise? I don't have the answer. But I know that in football, the true value of a tournament isn't who wins it, but how many people believe they can win it. Every prediction can be wrong. Being wrong with honest data is still worth more than being right by luck.