Vietnamese Pitch: Where Dreams Never Sleep

Vietnamese Pitch: Where Dreams Never Sleep One January afternoon, standing in the stands of My Dinh Stadium in Hanoi during the 2026 AFF Cup final second leg between Vietnam and Malaysia, I realized something I had missed for ten years of following football from afar. It was not the beautiful moves, not the tactics of coach Park Hang-seo, but a feeling – the feeling of a nation seeing itself in every step of the players. When Quang Hai curled a free kick into the Malaysian net in the 6th minute, the entire stadium erupted in a collective sigh of relief. I had written about big matches in Europe, about tired gods in Shanghai, about the collapse of the German empire in Kazan – but I had never seen a crowd cry from happiness like that. That was the moment I understood that Vietnamese football is not just a sport, but a symphony of memories, of years of hunger for glory, of generations who nurtured dreams in the dark. Vietnamese football, for me, does not begin with the 3-1 victory over Malaysia in that final. It begins in the 1990s, when I was a child in Saigon, listening to my father tell stories about matches where the national team had to play on dirt pitches, with players like Hong Son and Huynh Duc – men who ran on the field as if fleeing a heavy past. They had no modern tactics, no youth training centers, no money. They only had a heart and a fierce belief that one day, this country would have a team that would make the world look up. They were right. But the road there was not a straight line. It was winding, bumpy, full of cracks and silences. I remember 2026, when Vietnam co-hosted the Asian Cup with Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Our team, under coach Alfred Riedl, shocked everyone by beating the UAE 2-0 in the opening match. The whole country erupted. But then, as if by a cruel law, we lost to Japan 1-4 and Qatar 1-2, eliminated right from the group stage. I stood among the crowd at My Dinh Stadium, watching them cry, watching them leave the stands in silence, and I asked myself: Why do we always stop there? Why can we create magical moments but not sustain them? The answer, as I realized years later, lies not in tactics or technique, but in something deeper: a lack of patience and a lack of belief in a long-term process. Vietnamese people love football with a fierce love, but it is also a volatile love. We easily praise a player when he scores, but we are equally ready to mock him when he makes a mistake. We place too high expectations on short-term victories, forgetting that top-level football is a marathon, not a sprint. This is most evident in how we treat foreign coaches. From Alfred Riedl, through Henrique Calisto, through Miura Toshiya, to Park Hang-seo – each had certain successes, but each also faced enormous pressure from public opinion. We want a great team, but we are not willing to pay for that greatness with patience. But one thing I learned from years of following Vietnamese football: collapse is often the beginning of a revival. In 2026, when the U23 Vietnam team suffered a humiliating defeat at the SEA Games in Jakarta, eliminated from the group stage after only earning 4 points, I thought Vietnamese football would sink into darkness again. But instead, that failure sparked a quiet revolution. The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) began to invest more seriously in youth development, built training centers, and most importantly, became more patient with foreign coaches. They learned that there is no magic in football – only careful preparation, persistence, and a long-term vision. And then, in 2026, all those efforts blossomed. I still vividly remember that January night in 2026, when U23 Vietnam wrote a fairy tale in Changzhou, China. I was in Shenzhen, thousands of kilometers from the venue of the Asian U23 Championship final against Uzbekistan, but I could feel the trembling of an entire nation through my phone screen. That match was not just a football final – it was a battle of will, of men who pushed beyond physical limits to touch glory. When Quang Hai scored the equalizer in the 41st minute, I knew this was not just a goal, but a declaration: Vietnamese people can stand alongside the biggest football nations in Asia. Although we eventually lost 1-2 in extra time, the image of young players falling on the pitch, then rising, then crying, then embracing each other, was etched into the minds of millions. That was the moment Vietnamese football was no longer a sport, but a symbol of national resilience. After Changzhou, everything changed. Not just in terms of results, but in terms of psychology. Young players began to believe they could compete with any team on the continent. They no longer feared opponents of higher caliber. They started playing with a confidence rarely seen before. And that was most evident in the 2026 AFF Cup championship, in historic victories over Thailand, in reaching the quarter-finals of the 2026 Asian Cup. But one thing few people realize: all those successes stem from a foundation built over many years, not from a momentary miracle. It is the result of investing in youth development, of creating a more professional football ecosystem, and of having a coach who understands the identity of Vietnamese football. Park Hang-seo, a Korean, came to Vietnam in 2026 with a seemingly impossible mission: to turn a team once considered the weakest in Southeast Asia into a regional powerhouse. But he did not bring complex tactics or the most modern training methods. He brought something much simpler: patience and trust. He saw potential in players others overlooked. He gave them time to develop, gave them space to make mistakes, and most importantly, gave them the belief that they deserved to dream. That sounds cliché, but in football, sometimes the difference between victory and defeat lies not in technique or fitness, but in belief. And Park Hang-seo instilled in the Vietnamese national team a belief they had never had before. But I do not want to romanticize this story. Vietnamese football still has many problems. V-League, our top division, still lacks professionalism in many aspects. Clubs still depend too much on the money of wealthy owners, and when they withdraw, teams collapse like sandcastles. The youth training system, though improved, is still not synchronized and not strong enough to continuously produce generations of talented players. And most importantly, we still do not have a clear football philosophy, a distinctive playing style that Vietnamese people can identify with and be proud of. We win through enthusiasm, through fighting spirit, but we have not yet won through a systematic, scientific approach. There is a question I always ask myself when following Vietnamese football: What kind of team do we want to become? Do we want to be a Japan, with a clear football philosophy and a top-tier youth development system in Asia? Or do we want to be a South Korea, with outstanding individuals shining in Europe? Or do we want to be a Thailand, with regional dominance but lacking breakthrough at the continental level? The answer is not simple. But I believe that, to become a truly strong football nation, we need to build our own identity, a way of playing that when people see it, they can immediately say: That is Vietnamese football. This cannot be done overnight. It takes time, patience, and a long-term vision from all stakeholders – from the Federation, from clubs, from coaches, from players, and from the fans themselves. I remember an evening in Hanoi, sitting with an old friend, a former national team player from the 1990s. He told me about the days of playing in deprived conditions, about overnight flights to save costs, about meals of just rice and sesame salt before important matches. He said: "We had nothing but a heart. And we used that heart to run, to kick, to dream. Now the kids have more, but I am not sure they have a heart like ours." That statement made me think a lot. Does professionalization lose something invaluable in Vietnamese football – what I call the "Vietnamese spirit"? Are we trading enthusiasm, resilience, solidarity for something flashy but empty? I do not have an answer. But I believe that the most important thing is not how much money we have, how many players go abroad, how many titles we win. The most important thing is whether we keep that flame, the flame passed from generation to generation, from the barefoot players of the 1990s to the Quang Hais, Cong Phuongs, Van Haus of today. As I write these lines, I am in Shenzhen, thousands of kilometers from Vietnam. But every time the national team plays, I feel as if I am standing in the stands of My Dinh Stadium, merging into the crowd that is singing, crying, hoping. Vietnamese football, with all its flaws, is still something magical. It is a manuscript always being rewritten, a poem that never ends, a dream that never sleeps. And perhaps, that is why we love it so much. We love a team like we love a poem – not for its meaning, but for its rhythm. And the heartbeat of Vietnamese football, though sometimes slow, sometimes hurried, though sometimes seemingly stopping, still continues, like a heart that never stops beating. In recent years, I have witnessed the rise of a new generation of players – those who were systematically trained, have good technique, good fitness, and a confidence that the previous generation did not have. They no longer have to run on dirt pitches, no longer have to eat rice with sesame salt. They have nice boots, good training facilities, nutritionists, data analysts. But what I worry about is whether they still keep what their fathers and older brothers had – something that cannot be measured by metrics or data analysis – that burning desire to contribute to the Fatherland, to bring honor to the nation, to write glorious pages in the history of Vietnamese football. I hope so. I hope that the new generation, wherever they go, however successful they become, will still remember those who came before, those who laid the first bricks of the temple they now stand upon. Vietnamese pitches are not just places where matches are played. They are sacred spaces, where the memories of a nation are stored, where every goal is an affirmation, every defeat is a lesson, every drop of sweat is a prayer. When I see children in rural areas kicking a worn-out ball on empty lots, I see the image of myself many years ago, and I see the image of a bright future. Because football, in Vietnam, is not just a sport. It is part of the national identity, a thread connecting strangers, a source of inspiration for dreams. And as long as that flame burns, as long as children still kick balls on empty lots, as long as fans still sing in the stands, Vietnamese football will continue to develop, will continue to write fairy tales, will continue to bring honor to the country on the international stage. There is a saying I deeply resonate with: "Football is a manuscript always being rewritten." And the manuscript of Vietnamese football, though it has brilliant pages, still has many blank pages waiting to be written. I do not know what the future holds. I do not know if we can qualify for a World Cup. I do not know if we can produce world-class players. But I know one thing: as long as Vietnamese people love football, as long as children dream of wearing the national team jersey, as long as hearts beat to the rhythm of the ball, nothing is impossible. Because, as I wrote in an analysis of the German team's collapse in Kazan: "We love a team like we love a poem – not for its meaning, but for its rhythm." And the heartbeat of Vietnamese football, though sometimes slow, sometimes hurried, though sometimes seemingly stopping, still continues, like a heart that never stops beating. That is what I believe. That is what I hope. And that is what I will continue to follow, continue to write, continue to love – wherever I am in the world. The Vietnamese pitch, with all its scars, its bumps, its patches of yellowed grass, is still one of the most beautiful pitches I have ever set foot on. Not because it is modern or grand, but because it carries within it the stories, the memories, the dreams of millions of people. And I, a son living far from home, a writer who covers football from a different perspective, will always look toward it, will always listen to its heartbeat, will always write about it with all my heart. Because Vietnamese football is not just a sport. It is a part of me, a part of us, a part of this nation. And wherever I go, whatever I do, I will always carry in my heart the image of children kicking balls on empty lots, of fans singing in the stands, of players running their hearts out for the national colors. That is the image of life, of hope, of love. And that is why I write, and will continue to write about Vietnamese football, until I can no longer write.