A Few Hours at 97th: What Really Happened to Vietnam on the FIFA Ranking

That night, I sat before the screen watching the FIFA ranking update in real time. Vietnam had just beaten the Philippines 1-0, and on the board, their position jumped from 98th to 97th. I managed to write in my notebook: "97 — first time in months." Then my phone buzzed. A colleague in Europe messaged: Luxembourg beat Bulgaria. I reopened the ranking. Vietnam was back at 98th.

Just a few hours. That 97th place lasted shorter than a flight from Incheon to Hanoi. In that brief window, a story was written and shared — before being erased by a result in a country more than ten thousand kilometres away.

Thirty-four years on the sports corridor have taught me that moments like this are not rare. They are the nature of modern football: a sport measured to the hundredth of a point, where the fate of a football nation can depend on a match nobody in that country ever watched.

How FIFA Measures a Football Nation

To understand what really happened, we must start with how FIFA operates its ranking. Since 2026, FIFA abandoned its old system — based on a simple average — and switched to the "SUM" formula. Each match adds or subtracts a number of points depending on three factors: the result, the opponent's strength, and the importance of the competition.

The core principle is simple: beating a strong opponent earns more points than beating a weak one. This creates a paradox few fans notice — victories are not always rewarded proportionally.

When Vietnam beat the Philippines 1-0, they earned 3.67 points. That number sounds small, and it truly is small. But it is not small because Vietnam played poorly. It is small because the Philippines are rated significantly lower than Vietnam, and because this was only a regional competition match.

On the other side of the continent, Luxembourg — a small European side — beat Bulgaria and earned 8.06 points. Just one match. Double what Vietnam received, though their victory was no greater.

This is the key point I want readers to remember: the FIFA ranking does not measure the quality of a country's football. It measures that country's position within a system where Europe enjoys a structural advantage.

I have verified this many times in my career. When I worked as an analyst for the WK League — South Korea's top women's football league — I realised that statistical indices always reflect context more than the players themselves. A striker who scores ten goals in a weak league can have a lower index than one who scores five in a strong league. The same holds for national rankings.

One more word on context. The Southeast Asian regional competition — organised by the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) — is not a FIFA tournament. This matters because it directly affects the points each match yields. FIFA-organised competitions carry higher coefficients, while regional competitions carry lower ones. This is why Vietnam's win over the Philippines yielded only 3.67 points, whereas a World Cup qualifier win could yield three times that number.

The 13.28-Point Gap

Once all the numbers were updated, the Southeast Asian picture became clearer than ever. Thailand stood 92nd with 1,253.97 points. Vietnam stood 98th with 1,240.69 points. The gap was 13.28 points — equivalent to six places in the ranking.

Six places may not sound like much. But in this points band, six places is a real gap. Because in the 90-100 zone of the ranking, teams sit so tightly packed that one win can lift a side past three or four rivals at once.

I have spent years watching Asian men's and women's competitions, and I have learned one thing: never read the rank without reading the points. The rank is an image. The points are the truth.

And the truth is that Vietnam sit 13.28 points behind Thailand — a gap that cannot be erased by a narrow win. It requires a run of results, or a major victory over Thailand itself.

Notably, this gap is not new. It has existed for months, even years. Thailand has long been Southeast Asia's number one on the ranking, and Vietnam — despite periods of superior competitive achievement — has yet to convert that into ranking position.

This is a familiar paradox: achievement and ranking do not always move together.

The 0.19-Point Margin

One detail made me stop and think. When Vietnam briefly rose to 97th, they were ahead of the team below — Luxembourg — by just 0.19 points.

0.19 points. That is a number so small it seems meaningless in daily life, yet enough to decide the ranking of a football nation. And it shows Vietnam standing on a knife's edge: a single unfavourable result anywhere in the world could shift their position.

This is what I call "the fragility of ranking." Teams in the middle band — not strong enough to climb to the top group, not weak enough to be left behind — always live in a precarious state. They do not control their own fate, because that fate is decided by dozens of other matches across continents.

I once watched a women's team lose a World Cup berth simply because a team on another continent won a friendly. That feeling is hard to describe: you did everything right, yet you still lost.

In Vietnam's case, this fragility is sharper because they sit near the border between two ranking groups. And it raises a question I will return to at the end: is it worth attaching so much meaning to numbers that can change because of a match elsewhere?

Thailand Scored Four, Vietnam Scored One

There is a comparison I cannot ignore. In the same window, Thailand beat Bangladesh 4-0 and earned 1.71 points. Vietnam beat the Philippines 1-0 and earned 3.67 points.

Both won. Both gained points. But the gap in goals reflects something deeper about attacking strength.

The interesting part is this: Vietnam won by a narrow margin but earned more points than Thailand, simply because the Philippines are rated higher than Bangladesh. This shows the ranking does not reward dominance — it rewards beating higher-rated opponents.

I do not have sufficient detailed data — no xG, no PPDA, no passing numbers — to give a full tactical assessment. And I will not pretend otherwise. But at the raw results level, the signal is clear: one team scored four against a weak opponent, the other scored one against an opponent that is also not strong.

This does not mean Vietnam will lose to Thailand. Football does not operate by addition. A 4-0 win over Bangladesh does not guarantee a win over Vietnam. But it does mean that if the 29 September match unfolds by the script of those numbers, Vietnam will have to solve an attacking problem they have not yet proven they can solve.

I have watched many Southeast Asian matches, and I have noticed a pattern: teams in the region tend to have relatively solid defences but lack sharpness in attack. This holds true for both men's and women's football. And when two teams with the same characteristics meet, the result is often decided by a single moment — a mistake, a set piece, an individual action.

If that is the script for Vietnam versus Thailand, then whichever side has a player who can produce that moment will win.

The 29 September Match

All the analysis above leads to a single moment: 29 September, when Vietnam meet Thailand.

This is no ordinary match. It is a "six-pointer" in the truest sense of the term: a fixture whose result can reshape the balance between the two sides. A win could bring Vietnam close to Thailand on points. A defeat could widen the gap to a more worrying number.

Thailand enter this match with the mindset of a side that won 4-0 in their last outing. They are the team on top. They are the side defending Southeast Asia's leading position.

Vietnam enter as the chaser. But also with a quiet advantage: they will not be rated as highly, and that can bring tactical freedom. Underestimated teams often play with less pressure, and sometimes that makes the difference.

Coach Kim Sang Sik, a South Korean, is in charge. This says something about the Vietnam Football Federation's choice: they believe in the foreign-coach model, in discipline and structure. This is a common trend in Southeast Asia, where Korean and Japanese coaches increasingly appear.

But I do not have enough information about his tactical philosophy, and I will not guess. The only thing I know for certain is: a foreign coach is usually judged by results, not by process. And the 29 September match is an important result.

I have witnessed a foreign coach sacked after only a few months because of a defeat in an important match. That is the pressure of this profession. And it is also why I always remind myself that behind every tactical decision is a person trying to do their job.

What Nobody Wants to Say

There is a truth the media often avoids: many Asian teams play in a game whose rules are not fair.

Look at the calendar. An average European team plays more high-value matches than a Southeast Asian team over the same period. Competitions like the UEFA Nations League generate dozens of matches between top-50 sides each year. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian teams have only a few genuine international matches — and most of them are against regional opponents, i.e. matches that yield few points.

This means: Luxembourg, an unknown side, can earn more points than Vietnam simply because they play in Europe and have the chance to beat teams like Bulgaria.

I am not saying this to excuse Vietnam. I am saying it to place the story in proper context. The issue is not that Vietnam are getting worse. The issue is that Vietnam play in a system whose structure tilts towards Europe.

And when a system is designed that way, focusing on the rank instead of the points is a mistake. But that is precisely what headlines tend to do.

"Good News" That Is Not Good News

Look at the story again. The headline says Vietnam "moved up" the FIFA ranking. But the truth is: Vietnam finished that day in 98th place — exactly the position they held before the tournament.

There was no promotion. Only a brief moment at 97th, erased by a result in another country. And so, the "good news" is in fact neutral, even mildly negative.

This is what I call "the ranking illusion." When we track the rank as if it were a measure of true strength, we forget that it is only a number produced by a formula. And that formula, like any formula, can be influenced by factors beyond our control.

I have spoken with many players, and they often do not know exactly where their team ranks. They know the result of the match. They know who the next opponent is. But the number 97 or 98 in the ranking — that is not in their heads when they step onto the pitch.

Perhaps that is a lesson we should learn.

From the Numbers, I See a Person Waiting to Be Named

I have spent most of my career analysing women's football, and one thing I have learned is: behind every number there is always a person.

3.67 points. 13.28 points. 0.19 points. These numbers say nothing on their own. But they represent hours of training, flights, sleepless nights, moments when a player faces the pressure of millions.

And when I look at the ranking, I do not only see numbers. I see a team trying. I see a foreign coach trying to adapt to a new culture. I see young players dreaming of a day they can carry their country past a major round.

That is why I always remind myself: never write about the ranking without writing about the people. Because the ranking will change. The 29 September match will come and go. But those people — they are the ones who must live with the results.

I remember a line I once wrote: trophies are fleeting, people are forever. In those few hours at 97th, Vietnam had no trophy. But they had a team. And that matters more than any ranking.

What Really Matters

So what really matters in this story?

Not that Vietnam once stood 97th for a few hours. Not that they slipped back to 98th. Not the 13.28-point gap to Thailand — though that is an index worth noting.

What really matters is the 29 September match.

It is a chance for Vietnam to prove they can compete with Southeast Asia's strongest. A chance to narrow the points gap. A chance to show that a 1-0 win is not their ceiling.

And if they lose? Then that too is a lesson. Because sport is not only about winning. Sport is the process of learning from defeat, from fragile moments, from numbers that do not favour you.

At fifty, I understand that the pitch has no borders, but the heart has coordinates. My coordinates now are a stadium in Southeast Asia, where a team is preparing for a match that could reshape their place on the world football map.

Not everything. But a step. And in football, every step matters.