After the Golden Generation: In What Silence Is Vietnamese Football Growing Up?

When I stand in the middle of an empty stadium, I hear the echo of matches that never took place. That weekend afternoon, I sat in stand B of Hang Day Stadium, where the smell of damp concrete and the crackle of the loudspeaker were as familiar as they had been twenty years earlier. On the pitch, a group of the home team's young players were warming up. None of them was older than twenty-two. The stands were so empty that I could clearly hear the ball striking the grass, boots gripping the soil, and a fitness coach calling out the rhythm in a mix of English and Vietnamese. It was the sound of a generation growing up, and also the sound of a silence.

Fans do not need us to point them toward the stadium. They need a map for digging up memory so they can understand why they still stand there after every rise and fall.

I am not writing this to grade a match. I am writing to dig down through a few layers of soil: the layer of the golden generation now walking down the far slope, the layer of the young players growing up in that oversized shadow, and the layer of a football nation still fumbling to find its way forward. As an archaeologist of youth in football, I want to read the game through what does not happen, because what does not happen often says more than what does.

Context: the shadow of a generation

There is a date that anyone who follows Vietnamese football remembers instantly. In January 2026, in Changzhou, Vietnam's Under-23 team under coach Park Hang-seo reached the final of the AFC U-23 Championship after beating Qatar's Under-23 side in a nerve-shredding semi-final decided on penalties. The whole country took to the streets. People who knew nothing about football taped flags to their motorbikes. It was the moment a generation of players stepped out of the shadows and became symbols: Nguyen Quang Hai, Nguyen Cong Phuong, Doan Van Hau, Do Duy Manh, Bui Tien Dung, Phan Van Duc, Nguyen Tien Linh.

Vietnamese football at that time carried a rare belief: that a generation trained properly, raised in decent academies, could lift the entire game to a higher tier. That belief was sustained by the 2026 AFF Cup title, by Asian Cup campaigns, by a place inside the FIFA top 100, and by the feeling that Vietnam had finally found a formula.

But every generation ages. Seven years after Changzhou, most of that group have passed thirty, and some have retired or moved into other roles. The shadow they left behind is not only a glow of glory but also an extremely harsh standard of comparison for anyone who comes after.

Foundations: the academies that changed how the game was run

To understand the environment in which the next generation is growing up, I have to return to a deeper layer of soil. Before 2026, Vietnamese youth football relied mainly on federation training centres and local nurseries. The turning point came when the Hoang Anh Gia Lai JMG Football Academy was founded in 2026, inspired by France's Clairefontaine model, recruiting children very early and training them over the long term. The academy's first cohort produced Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong, Van Toan and Hong Duy.

Alongside it, the Vietnam Football Talent Development Fund, known as PVF, was established in 2026, building a modern centre in Hung Yen. The Viettel Sports Centre, and later the Viettel Football Academy, served as a stable supplier for both the club and the national team. Hanoi FC, formerly Hanoi T&T, built a methodical youth system with successive generations. These academies created an ecosystem Vietnamese football had never had before.

Those three talent streams remain the backbone. Watching matches over many years has shown me one thing: when the national team gathers, players from PVF, Hoang Anh Gia Lai JMG and Viettel usually make up a large share of the squad. This is the fruit of nearly two decades of investment, but it is also a sign that the flow of talent still depends on a few centres rather than spreading evenly across the country.

V.League: where youth must fight for a place

The crucial point is that training quality is only half the story. The other half lies in whether young players actually get to play, and that is where the V.League becomes the harshest test of all.

V.League 1 is Vietnam's top professional league, usually with fourteen teams playing a double round-robin. The number of matches in a season is modest compared with the major European leagues, meaning every starting place is precious as gold. Under that pressure, coaches facing results-driven demands tend to choose experienced, stable players rather than trusting a nineteen-year-old who is still raw.

This creates a paradox. The academies produce eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds who are highly rated, but once they reach the V.League they often sit on the bench, waiting for a chance. Some choose to go abroad in search of starting minutes. Others stay and wait patiently. But youth in football passes very quickly, and a player who loses two seasons on the bench can waste the most important development phase of his career.

When I watch V.League matches, I often note the actual minutes played by footballers under twenty-three. Over several seasons, that figure has not moved in a positive direction as one might hope. Many clubs still prioritise immediate results over investing in the future, and that reflects a league structure in which relegation pressure and short-term success override long-term vision.

Finance and the transfer window: noise drowning out signal

Every transfer deal is an excavation: wearing away the layer of media, finding the fossil of ambition. The transfer window in Vietnam has its own character. There are no hundred-million-euro fees, but there are quiet contests between the big clubs. A talented young player can be chased by several teams, and domestic transfer values, though small in absolute terms, take up a significant share of mid-table clubs' budgets.

What stands out is that the financial structure of most V.League clubs depends heavily on one or two main sponsors or parent companies. Broadcasting revenue, commercial revenue and matchday attendance are not yet enough to create an independent, sustainable income stream. When a parent company struggles, the club wobbles. When that happens, young players are the first group affected, because they are the investment that can be cut fastest.

During the transfer window, I always advise readers to distinguish rumour from signal. A transfer rumour deserves belief only when it has at least two of three elements: a source directly from the club or agent, a concrete financial indicator, and an observable squad move. Most information circulating on social media lacks all three. That is the layer of media dust that must be brushed away before digging to the real soil.

Tactical trends: when football is dragged toward athletics

One major change I have observed in the V.League in recent seasons is a shift toward physicality. Mid-table teams increasingly play a high press, contest the ball aggressively and switch quickly. This follows a global trend: gegenpressing was once the weapon of the strongest teams, but once it was decoded, it became the minimum standard every team must meet.

The consequence is that mid-table sides use physicality to compensate for technical gaps, turning matches into races of stamina. There is an upside: match intensity rises, Vietnamese players duel more and grow used to a higher tempo. But the downside is clear: players with good technique but an incomplete physical base are easily pushed to the margins. And for a nineteen-year-old, the V.League's physical demands can be a bigger barrier than its technical ones.

Metrics such as passes allowed per defensive action, or chance quality, are not yet published widely in the V.League as they are in Europe. But when I keep my own notes during matches, I see a recurring pattern: teams tend to concede possession and counter, rather than dominate the ball. That makes creative players who can carry the ball and organise the game rarer and more valuable.

Naturalisation policy: short-term fix or long-term jolt?

A hot topic in recent years is player naturalisation. When Vietnam won the 2026 ASEAN Cup, the final victory over Thailand bore the strong imprint of naturalised striker Nguyen Xuan Son, who is of Brazilian origin. This opened a major debate: is naturalisation a shortcut, and does it obscure opportunities for domestic young players?

I believe the issue should be seen on two layers. On the surface, a high-quality naturalised striker immediately solves the scoring problem that Vietnamese football lacked for years. On a deeper layer, the real question is: if the domestic training system were good enough, would such a solution be needed? Having to naturalise a striker to fill a gap in attack is a sign that Vietnam's striker production line has a problem.

This is where I recall the Russian shock. At the 2026 World Cup in Russia, while working in Moscow, I learned a lesson about looking at roots rather than surfaces. A national team can win one match thanks to an outstanding individual, but to go the distance it needs a system. Naturalisation is a good drill bit, but it cannot replace an entire geological layer.

A contrarian angle: hype versus long-term development

This is the part I want to spend the most time on, because it touches a deep-seated habit in Vietnamese football: the habit of hype.

Every time a young player scores a beautiful goal, social media immediately calls him the heir to the golden generation. Every time a youth team wins a regional tournament, people talk about a new glorious cycle. This enthusiasm has an upside: it creates interest, creates audiences, creates motivation. But it also creates expectations out of proportion to reality, and when reality fails to deliver, the backlash is just as fierce.

What the media and fans rarely do is look at the development curve. A player does not grow in a straight line. There are plateaus, injuries and disappointing seasons. The Changzhou golden generation of 2026 was not a group of players who were superior from the start, but the result of a process lasting nearly a decade from when they were eleven-year-old children.

Vietnam's problem is not a lack of talent. It is a lack of patience for talent to mature. A nineteen-year-old needs time, trust and matches even in defeat. But in an environment where one loss can cost a coach his job, giving youth a chance becomes a gamble few dare to take.

A summer of empty stands. I use this phrase to describe a different state: the periods when football is interrupted, when the stands fall silent, and people are forced to look at themselves again. In such silences, I realise that what makes a football nation is not the explosive moment but the quiet work that follows it.

A Moscow memory and how to read a player's name

At thirty-six, I cried in Moscow. Not because of a team, but because I saw a whole young generation pour over the barriers to touch a dream. That was the 2026 World Cup, and it was also when I learned that a good sports journalist cannot simply stand high in the stands.

There is a story I rarely tell. In the Egypt versus Uruguay match on 15 June 2026 at Ekaterinburg Stadium, I was assigned the role of field commentator for a sports radio station. I mispronounced Mohamed Salah's name three times in the first half. Listeners called in to complain. That night, I sat in the hotel, turned on the recording, and practised pronunciation until two in the morning. The next morning, I wrote a piece about the devotion of Egyptian fans, who kept singing even as their team lost.

That lesson has followed me throughout my career: before you speak about a person, you must know their name exactly. It sounds trivial, but it is the foundation of all serious analysis. In Vietnamese football, I see many people rush to judge a young player without ever watching him play a full ninety minutes, without cross-checking data, without hearing his own story. That is the kind of snap conclusion after a match that I always try to avoid.

The voice of the stands: the next generation is not only on the pitch

When I set up my own channel with a name rooted in origins, I realised something traditional newsrooms often overlook: fans want the story about themselves. The first match I covered in depth was at Yuexiushan Stadium, where a supporters' group sang without stopping for ninety minutes. My article reached one hundred thousand reads just twelve hours later. I understood that the strength of a football nation lies not only in the national team but in the people who keep coming to the stadium even when their team loses.

In Vietnam, young supporters' groups are rewriting the language of fandom. They learn from abroad, blend it with local character, and create new banners and songs. They are part of the next generation, no less important than the players. If we look only at the pitch and ignore the stands, we miss half the story.

What is actually happening inside the academies

Back to the main layer of soil. To assess the next generation, I need to look at three dimensions: technique, physicality and psychology.

On technique, young Vietnamese players today are far better trained than twenty years ago. They can control the ball in tight spaces, pass first-time, move off the ball. These skills come from modern academies and from early exposure to international football through television and social media.

On physicality, this is a chronic weakness. Compared with Asia's leading football nations such as Japan and South Korea, Vietnamese players are often smaller, with limited acceleration and duelling strength. The academies have improved nutrition and fitness programmes, but this is a process that takes generations. A nineteen-year-old today has a better physical base than the previous generation, but still needs time to catch up with continental standards.

On psychology, this is the hardest dimension to measure. The Changzhou golden generation stood out for their ability to handle pressure in big matches. Does the next generation have that quality? The answer comes only when they truly stand before decisive moments. I am always cautious when judging a young player's mentality, because it shows only over time, not over a few matches.

A second contrarian angle: the problem is not the players

There is a widespread belief that Vietnamese football needs a new golden generation to rise to a new level. I think that belief places the emphasis wrongly.

Looking at successful football nations in Asia, their common thread is not producing many exceptional talents but building a system that lets ordinary players reach their maximum. Japan has hundreds of players at continental standard not because they are lucky, but because their system allows it. South Korea is the same. Vietnam is at a stage where individual quality can be outstanding, but the system behind it has not caught up.

This leads to a contrarian conclusion: Vietnamese football may not need another golden generation, but a league structure, a training system and a professional culture that allow many generations to coexist and develop. The golden generation was a historical moment, not a model that can be repeated on demand.

Risk and probability: a conditional judgment

When assessing the next generation's prospects, I always set out scenarios.

The optimistic scenario: academies keep producing talent, the V.League increases minutes for young players through incentive rules, and the national team stays among Southeast Asia's leaders. In this scenario, Vietnam can compete for places at an expanded World Cup, a goal no longer far-fetched as Asia's quota grows.

The neutral scenario: talent keeps appearing but unevenly, the national team oscillates between regional success and continental failure, and the gap with Japan, South Korea and Iran remains wide.

The pessimistic scenario: clubs face financial difficulty, investment in youth development is cut, and a generation of promising players is wasted for lack of a playing environment. This is the scenario I fear most, because it does not come from the pitch but from the boardroom.

I do not offer a specific probability figure, because doing so would be artificial. But I can say that which scenario materialises depends largely on decisions made off the pitch, in the meeting rooms of the federation and the clubs, rather than on the talent of a few individuals.

Signals to watch

There are several indicators I will track in the coming seasons. The first is the actual minutes played by under-23 players in the V.League. The second is the number of Vietnamese players going abroad to leagues of higher quality than the V.League. The third is the financial stability of clubs, because that is the foundation for everything else. The fourth is the quality of national youth competitions, where fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds begin their journey.

As an archaeologist of youth, I am not looking for an explosive moment. I am looking for layers of sediment. A healthy football nation is one in which, every year, a few new players step into the light, not to replace the previous generation but to join a continuous stream.

Closing: a progressive thought

That night, as I left Hang Day Stadium, I walked along a quiet street. A group of young people were playing football on a small patch beside the road, under a yellow lamp. There were no spectators, no coach, no one recording the score. There was only laughter and the sound of the ball against the wall.

I thought about all the generations that have passed, about the matches that took place and the matches that never did, about the players who became famous and those who will never be known. Vietnamese football will not be saved by a new golden generation. It will be raised by thousands of children like that group on that night, who play for pure joy, and by a system generous enough to give them a path.

If there is one thing I want to convey in this piece, it is this: stop waiting for the next golden generation, and start building an environment in which every generation can be itself. Because when you stand in the middle of an empty stadium and listen long enough, you realise the echo does not come from the past. It comes from the future, from matches still waiting to be played.

— Root: From the core