When the National Cup Becomes a Mirror: Four V-League Clubs Fall and the Lives Behind the Scoreline

The match in Quy Nhon ended at 9:07 PM. Only a few figures remained on Stand B. A man of about sixty still sat motionless in the fourth row, clutching a scarf embroidered with words I could not read clearly because half the stadium lights had already gone out. He did not stand when the referee blew the final whistle. He just sat there, looking down at the pitch where Hoang Anh Gia Lai players were bowing their heads and walking into the tunnel. Behind him, a boy wearing a first-division team's jersey was jumping with joy, shouting the name of the player who had just scored. Two generations, two emotions, one moment. I stood in the technical area, notebook in hand, and asked myself: what happened to Vietnamese football over the past weekend? Eight qualifying matches of the 2026-2027 National Cup, four V-League representatives fell to teams from the first division. Three of them lost at home. And in that silent stadium moment, I realized I was fortunate to have a voice to soothe — though this time, the ones needing soothing were those who believed class was immutable. It was a night of paradoxes. A night of teams richer in tradition, richer in money, richer in history, yet leaving the pitch with bowed heads. A night when the giants of the V-League had to relearn an old lesson: football is not the sum of numbers on a contract. I call it the night of mirrors. Because the National Cup has long been treated as a secondary arena, an administrative burden, an obligation teams must fulfill rather than a glory to pursue. But over those two weekend days, that very neglected arena became the clearest mirror of the cracks in the system. It began on Saturday evening. No warning signs. No media storm. Just eight pairings, sixteen teams, and the familiar rhythm of matches where the stands are rarely full. Thanh Hoa entered their match against Becamex Ho Chi Minh City at home with the posture of a club unsure it would even survive. That was a sentence I heard from a team staff member standing beside me in the parking area before kickoff. "Our team only knows it is still alive, brother." He said it in a tone so calm that I had to turn and look at his face to be sure he was not joking. Thanh Hoa lost 0-2. No drama. No regret. A defeat as flat as a winter lake. Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, relegated to the first division and now a promotion candidate, won without much difficulty. I had watched Becamex train before this match, on a rainy afternoon at their training center. A club with a far more modest budget than the V-League giants, but on the pitch, they played like people with something to prove. I liked how an assistant coach described the match to me: "We did not come to participate. We came to eat." The line was not poetic, but it contained a truth that higher-division clubs often forget: sometimes the hungry are more dangerous than the full. Then came Hoang Anh Gia Lai. This is the story that troubled me most, because I had once witnessed the fiery nights of Pleiku, where the stands overflowed with gong and drum rhythms and people called the mountain team by two affectionate words. But this time, they did not play in Pleiku. Pleiku Stadium was renovating its pitch due to poor drainage whenever heavy rain fell. They had to borrow Quy Nhon Stadium as a temporary home. And that so-called home lacked the most important thing: family. No familiar applause. No faces that had been attached for decades. Only empty stands, lonely footsteps, and an opponent, Hung Yen, burning with the will to win. Hoang Anh Gia Lai lost 1-3 by the 77th minute before pulling back to 2-3 from the penalty spot in the 90+4th minute. I recorded that moment in my notebook with a short line: "The goal saved no one, but it gave them the right to die standing." I recall once writing that every goal is a song, and I am merely the one who transcribes the lyrics. But on that Quy Nhon night, I did not want to transcribe a sad song. I wanted to record how a young Hoang Anh Gia Lai player, after scoring from the penalty spot, did not celebrate but ran to the center circle, bowed his head, and placed his hand on his chest. A small gesture. But in that gesture lay an entire season ahead, a relegation battle the mountain club knew it would face for the umpteenth time in recent years. In Hai Phong, a similar story. The port city club hosted Thep Can Tho at home and lost 0-1. The only goal came from Thaileon, a striker who had joined the club just days earlier. I looked into this player. A man who left his hometown, sought opportunity in a new land, and in his first match for his new club, he scored. In football, a transfer is not a number, but lives finding new harbors. Thaileon was one such life. Thep Can Tho, a club that had just relocated from Quang Ninh to the western capital and had just lost its opener in the 2026-2027 first division, arrived in Hai Phong with the mindset of those with nothing left to lose. They won. And in that victory, I saw a simple truth: newcomers often do not fear what the veterans have long grown used to. Finally, Hong Linh Ha Tinh. They lost to Phu Tho 2-3 on penalties after a 0-0 draw in 90 minutes. A match where the draw reflected nothing. A match where both teams feared losing more than they wanted to win. But once it reached the shootout, where luck and nerve are placed on the scale, Phu Tho proved calmer. I sat in the technical room watching Hong Linh Ha Tinh players bow their heads after a missed kick, and I thought about how football always finds a way to make people pay for hesitation. The only exception for the V-League that weekend was Bac Ninh. They won 3-2 away at first-division Long An. I am not saying Bac Ninh were far superior to their sibling clubs, but perhaps they arrived in Long An with a different mindset. On a weekend when three other clubs lost at home, Bac Ninh winning away is worth contemplating. Sometimes, going far from home is the best way to remember that you are not the center of the universe. Eight matches, four V-League defeats, three of them at home. Those numbers, viewed casually, could be seen as accidents. But when I sat down after the match, reread my notes, and wove them together, I saw something larger than an accident. It was a system operating in a way it does not wish to operate. And to understand this, I must tell you about how the National Cup is treated in Vietnam. I first came to Vietnam many years ago, when I was still a student traveling with a documentary crew. Since then, I have returned many times, and each time, I learn something more about how Vietnamese football operates. There is one story I always carry with me, like a small pebble in my pocket. It is the story of a coach of a mid-table V-League club whom I met in a cafe downtown. He poured tea for me, then said: "In Vietnam, there are two leagues. One to make a living. One to make a name. But neither is enough to sustain a club. So we must choose." He chose to make a living. That meant choosing to survive in the V-League, where sponsorship contracts, television rights, and the survival of an entire apparatus depend on whether the club remains in the top flight. That is why the National Cup, a tournament any football nation on earth treats as a chance to write fairy tales, is treated by many Vietnamese clubs as a burden. For many V-League clubs, especially those without ambition, the National Cup is not a main arena. The deeper you go, the more money is spent on travel and lodging, the more squad concerns arise, while V-League survival matters far more. I understand that. I understand it rationally. But I also remember that football is not sustained by reason alone. Once I asked an elderly fan in Nam Dinh whether he was sad that his club no longer cared much for the National Cup. He looked at me for a long while, then said: "I am sad, but I understand. Football is now economics. And economics has no room for dreams." That sentence left me silent. Because I believe football, at its deepest level, remains a place where dreams are allowed to exist. I believe the ball rolls through generations, but the heartbeat of the fans never changes. So why do we build a system that turns those dreams into burdens? Perhaps I am asking the wrong question. Perhaps the right question is not why V-League clubs neglect the National Cup, but why they are forced to neglect it. That is the question I want to pose in this article. Because when we view those defeats as the fault of the clubs, we ignore the truth that those clubs are reacting rationally to skewed incentives established by the system. A system in which survival brings far greater economic benefit than a deep cup run. To understand Thanh Hoa better, look at what is happening behind the scenes. This is the club that most clearly illustrates this. The Thanh-based club only learned it would still exist just before the 2026-2027 V-League began. Its squad was limited because it lacked the funds to retain key players or buy new ones. I sat at Thanh Hoa Stadium one day before the match, watching the players train under the late-afternoon sun. A club with young faces, runs still full of hesitation, and on the technical bench, coaching staff exchanging tired glances. Moreover, before facing Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa faced a fresh financial worry to keep the club running. FIFA had just demanded the club pay more than 305,000 USD, about 8 billion dong, to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a complaint with FIFA. If the matter is not resolved within 45 days of receiving the document on September 16, Thanh Hoa will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows. The snag is that the matter dates back to the previous sponsor's tenure, while Thanh Hoa has now been handed over to a new sponsor. This is the story I want to tell you in more depth, because it contains all the contradictions of modern Vietnamese football. In the transfer window, noise drowns out signal. People talk about million-dollar deals, blockbuster contracts, young players valued sky-high. But the real story lies in the clauses, the forgotten debts, the commitments never fulfilled. The case of Rimario Gordon and Thanh Hoa is a textbook example. A foreign player comes to Vietnam, plays, and when he leaves, he is not paid what he was promised. He sues. FIFA issues a ruling. But the club has changed owners. And the question arises: who is responsible for the debts of the past? I have spoken with several sports lawyers about cases like this. They explained to me that, under FIFA regulations, a club is generally regarded as a continuous legal entity, regardless of changes in ownership or sponsorship. This means that, in the eyes of international football law, today's Thanh Hoa is still the same entity as the Thanh Hoa of the previous sponsorship tenure. The obligation to pay does not vanish simply because the new leadership does not wish to accept it. This is a harsh truth that many Vietnamese clubs must learn. And so, before stepping onto the pitch against Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa already carried a double burden: the burden of a squad weak in strength, and the burden of an 8 billion dong debt hanging over its head. Try to put yourself in the position of a Thanh Hoa player that night. You walk onto the pitch, knowing your club could be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows if it cannot pay. You know this season, your team may struggle to survive. You know your own future is precarious. And you must play football. You must play the game you love, while your mind is full of worries that do not belong to the pitch. In such situations, losing a National Cup match is not the worst thing. The worst thing is not knowing where you will be next summer. That is the truth of Vietnamese football that few mention. Behind every match, behind every scoreline, are lives wrestling with problems the broadcasters never report. That night, after the Thanh Hoa match ended, I walked out to the media area and ran into a local journalist. He was smoking in silence. I stood beside him for a while before he spoke: "You know, I have followed this club for fifteen years. I have seen it promoted, relegated, then promoted again. But never have I seen it play with such a sense of despair as now." He stubbed out his cigarette, then added: "Despair not because of losing. Despair because they do not know what tomorrow holds." I am not Vietnamese. I was born in China, grew up in Japan, and write about football in Japanese for Japanese readers. But whenever I come to Vietnam, I feel something very familiar. Perhaps it is the way football here is loved not through numbers, but through stories. In Japan, football is organized to the point where people sometimes forget it is still a human game. In Vietnam, football remains purely human, with all its mess, passion, and pain. I recall a story I wrote years ago, when I sat in Rostov-on-Don and watched Japanese fans pick up trash under the stands while tears still streamed down their faces. That was the night I cried over the ball, but learned to listen to strangers. An old man named Tanaka told me he was not sad about losing, but sad that a generation's dream had just closed. I have thought about those words a great deal these past days. Because in Vietnam, I see dreams closing in a different way. Not closing in a tragic on-field defeat, but closing quietly, in unpaid contracts, cut sponsorships, in clubs unsure whether they will exist when the new season begins. But I will not end my story there. Because Vietnamese football does not only have struggling V-League clubs. Vietnamese football also has first-division clubs with people hungry to fight for a place on a bigger stage. And it is those people who wrote the story of the past weekend. Look at Becamex Ho Chi Minh City. A club just relegated to the first division, but instead of collapsing, they stood up. They came to Thanh Hoa with the posture of a team finding its way back. I watched them play, and what I saw was not a first-division club inferior in class. What I saw was a first-division club playing with intense focus, with the determination of those who know each match is a chance to prove they deserve a higher place. That is the spirit of an ambitious club. Then Hung Yen. A club I knew very little about before that match. But after watching them play Hoang Anh Gia Lai, I spent an entire morning learning about them. I read about their history, the difficulties they had endured, the people attached to this club over the years. And what I found was a familiar Vietnamese football story: a small club with a modest budget, with players not highly rated, but with a great aspiration. On that Quy Nhon night, they turned aspiration into reality. Thep Can Tho is a special case. A club that had just relocated from Quang Ninh to the western capital, that had just lost its first-division opener. On paper, they were the weakest of the weak. But stepping onto Lach Tray, they played like people with nothing to lose. And Thaileon, a striker who had joined just days earlier, scored the only goal. I wondered: what lets a newly arrived player, unfamiliar with teammates and tactics, shine in such an important match? Perhaps it is the power of freedom. When you have nothing to lose, you play with a looseness that those too accustomed to pressure can no longer possess. Phu Tho is different. They had no stars. No budget. They had only a bonded collective and an unyielding spirit. The match with Hong Linh Ha Tinh went 90 minutes scoreless, then to penalties. In such moments, football returns to its most primal nature: a confrontation between people, where nerve is measured by the ability to stand firm under pressure. Phu Tho stood firm. Hong Linh Ha Tinh did not. I want to pause here to speak of what I call the blind spot of collective memory. In football, we tend to remember big clubs, big stars, big moments. We remember resounding victories, beautiful goals, trophies. But we seldom remember small clubs, small people, and the small moments that make up the soul of this sport. The past weekend was a weekend when small clubs spoke up. Not through statements, but through goals. Not through speeches, but through plays. Those first-division clubs did not have much money, many stars, or many fans. But they had something many V-League clubs had lost: hunger. This is the contradiction I want to analyze more deeply. In football, there is a basic paradox: success is often the enemy of hunger. When a club has achieved a stable position in the top flight, it tends toward conservatism. It focuses on keeping what it has rather than risking to gain what it lacks. This is true not only in Vietnam but in every football nation on earth. But in Vietnam, where the financial gap between clubs is not too large and the pressure of survival is ever-present, this paradox becomes even more pronounced. I once spoke with a Japanese coach who worked briefly in Vietnam. He told me something I never forgot: "In Vietnam, players have better technique than people think. The problem is not technique. The problem is mentality. Vietnamese players play well when they have nothing to lose. But when they have something to protect, they become withdrawn." I think that line explains a great deal about what we saw this past weekend. V-League clubs entered the National Cup matches with the mindset of those with something to protect. They feared injury. They feared losing energy. They feared a defeat affecting morale for the next V-League match. And that very fear became a burden. Meanwhile, first-division clubs entered with the mindset of those with nothing to lose. They played with a freedom the big clubs lacked. And in football, freedom usually beats fear. I think this carries meaning deeper than one specific match. It says something about how Vietnamese football operates. A system in which small clubs are treated as outsiders, yet are often the ones bringing the best stories. A system in which the National Cup — a tournament designed to give small clubs opportunities — is regarded by big clubs as a burden. A system in which fans must watch their clubs play without the highest concentration. But there is one thing I want to be fair about. I do not want to paint a picture where first-division clubs are heroes and V-League clubs are villains. Football is not such a simple fairy tale. The truth is V-League clubs face pressures we cannot fully understand by looking only at results on the pitch. Thanh Hoa with its 8 billion dong debt. Hoang Anh Gia Lai with a home stadium under renovation and a relegation season ahead. Hai Phong with internal issues I can only guess at from the glances of staff. Hong Linh Ha Tinh with a thin squad and a coaching staff trying to make do. This is the contradiction I want to place on the table. If we look only at V-League clubs neglecting the National Cup, we will conclude they lack respect for the tournament. But if we look at what they face, we see they are making rational choices in unavoidable circumstances. And the real question is not how to make V-League clubs value the National Cup more, but how to make Vietnamese football's system able to sustain its clubs enough that they can give their all in every competition. That is a big question. One whose answer does not lie in a single article, a single match, or a single season. It lies in how Vietnamese football is organized, funded, and loved. It lies in policies on television rights, revenue sharing, infrastructure development. It lies in investing in youth training, sports medicine, and caring for players not merely as workers but as people. It is a long road. And while waiting for that road to be completed, we will see many more weekends like the past one. But I do not write this to be pessimistic. I write it to record a moment I believe is important. Because the defeats of V-League clubs to first-division teams are a sign that Vietnamese football, at its deepest level, still has life. Football dies when results are decided before the ball rolls. Football dies when money becomes the sole determinant of success. Football dies when no one believes miracles can happen. This past weekend, in Thanh Hoa, in Quy Nhon, in Lach Tray, small miracles happened. And that, to me, is good news. I spent the two days after that weekend talking to many people. To fans of the losing clubs, who still sat after the final whistle. To players of the winning clubs, who still did not believe what they had done. To stadium staff, who cleaned the stands after everyone had gone. And I realized one thing: in football, emotion is not divided by class. The sadness of a V-League fan is as great as the joy of a first-division fan. Two sides of the same coin. One of the conversations I remember most was with a boy of about twelve in Quy Nhon. He wore a Hung Yen jersey, the club that had just beaten Hoang Anh Gia Lai. I asked why he supported Hung Yen. He replied: "Because my father is from Hung Yen." I asked further: "Are you sad that Hoang Anh Gia Lai lost?" He looked at me for a moment, then said: "No. Because I am not a Hoang Anh Gia Lai fan." He ran off, leaving me with that simple and profound answer. In football, we choose clubs to love, not because they are the strongest, but because they belong to us. And when they win, we are happy. When they lose, we are sad. But that emotion does not depend on what division our club stands in. That made me think of another aspect of the story: the fans. In modern football, fans are often viewed as a dependent factor, a component of the product, an index for ratings. But in reality, fans are the ones who nurture football. Without fans, there is nothing. The eight matches last weekend, if we look only at attendance figures, may show unimpressive numbers. But if we look at the stories behind them, we will see something else. I recall an elderly woman in Thanh Hoa whom I met at the stadium gate before the match. She sold water and bread to fans. She had sat there for twenty years. She told me: "Child, the stadium used to be full. Now it is emptier. But I still come. Because I believe that one day the stadium will be full again." Her words moved me. Because behind every match, behind every scoreline, are people like her, people who have been attached to football their whole lives without expecting anything in return. They do not need trophies. They do not need stars. They only need to know their club still exists, still plays, still is part of the community. Nagoya taught me that every voice longs for a stand. In Vietnam, I learned one more thing: even when there is no stand, those voices do not stop. There are still boys in first-division jerseys cheering for their parents. There are still elderly women selling water at stadium gates for twenty years. There are still small clubs training day after day, hoping one day to play on a big stage. So my final question is: what are we doing to protect those voices? What are we doing to ensure a club like Thanh Hoa does not face the risk of a registration ban over a debt belonging to the past? What are we doing to ensure a club like Hoang Anh Gia Lai does not have to borrow another's stadium to play its matches? What are we doing to ensure the National Cup is no longer a burden but an opportunity? I have no answers to those questions. But I believe that posing them is the first step to finding answers. And I believe Vietnamese football, with all its difficulties, still has enough strength to face those challenges. Because the ball rolls through generations, but the heartbeat of the fans never changes. Looking back at the eight matches last weekend, I see not only four V-League defeats. I see a system in need of rethinking. I see lives wrestling with difficulties that do not belong to the pitch. I see small clubs hungry to rise. And I see fans, people who still come to the stadium day after day, with the belief that one day their club will do something miraculous. There are sporting moments that never die, only drift away from the clock. Those moments are not recorded in record books. They do not appear on television. They are not mentioned in commentary. But they exist, in the memory of those who witnessed them, in the hearts of those who lived through them. This past weekend, I believe we witnessed some such moments. And perhaps, in a few years, looking back, we will understand that this was not just a weekend of defeats. This was a weekend of beginnings. I left Quy Nhon on Sunday morning. On the bus back to the city, I looked out the window and saw rice fields ripening to gold. In a distant corner of the sky, a plane flew toward the horizon. I thought of the people I had met over the two days. The man who stayed in the stands. The boy cheering for Hung Yen. The elderly woman selling water in Thanh Hoa. The local journalist smoking in silence. The young Hoang Anh Gia Lai player placing his hand on his chest after scoring. Thaileon, who scored in his first match for a new club. All of them, those people, are Vietnamese football. Not the numbers on the scoreboard. Not the trophies on the shelf. But people living, loving, hurting, and continuing to believe the ball will keep rolling. The stadium was empty. But the heart is not. And perhaps that is the most important thing I learned this past weekend. When the stadium fell silent, I realized I was fortunate to have a voice to soothe. But this time, the ones needing soothing were not only the fans of the losing teams. It was all of us, witnessing a football nation wrestling with itself, and still endlessly hoping that tomorrow will be better.