Important milestones
From the end of 2024 - the beginning of 2025 to now, Vietnamese football has continuously achieved remarkable milestones.
On the national team level, the convincing victory over Thailand in both legs of the ASEAN Cup 2024 final helps the Vietnamese team return to the position of "king" of Southeast Asia.
As of March 24, 2026, the Vietnamese national team is ranked 103rd in the world, 18th in Asia and 2nd in Southeast Asia. Recently, coach Kim Sang-sik and his team officially won tickets to the 2027 Asian Cup finals.
More importantly, Vietnam has won the right to participate fully in the continental level youth football finals, from U17, U19, U23 men to U17 women, national women's team...
In particular, in the past year, U23 Vietnam won the U23 Southeast Asian Championship, won a gold medal at SEA Games 33 and won a bronze medal at the Asian Championship.
The talent of head coach Kim Sang-sik as well as the preparation efforts of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) cannot be underestimated. Mr. Kim Sang-sik came to Vietnam with suspicions but later became "king Midas" when "touching hands brings gold".
VFF also showed the thorough preparation process when planning foreign training, friendly matches, logistics work, and building youth teams.
Along with that, the fact that a series of young players were unexpectedly given the opportunity to play in the V.League early such as Nguyen Le Phat, Nguyen Ngoc My, Nguyen Thai Son, Le Van Thuan or Nguyen Minh Phuc helped coach Kim Sang-sik have a abundant force in hand, bringing many surprises to the opponent.
More importantly, the achievements of youth football once again ignite great hope for fans about a distant dream. When the talented generation including Quang Hai, Hoang Duc, Cong Phuong, Duy Manh, Thanh Chung, Tien Dung... seems to have reached the peak, football fans need new names to surpass them.
They are Nguyen Dinh Bac, Tran Trung Kien, Nguyen Hieu Minh, Khuat Van Khang, Nguyen Quoc Viet... - people who have just created a series of highlights in 2025.
Hopes
In an interview with Lao Dong newspaper, Mr. Hoang Thanh Tung - former Technical Director of Thanh Hoa Club - commented: "For me personally, having more young players shine is always a good thing for any football background, not just Vietnam. But in our situation, this is no different from a cool stream in the desert.
There are times when Vietnamese football is in a halfway stage when key players gradually lose themselves, while the group of young players has not yet had time to shoulder the responsibility with their seniors. Fortunately, a series of recent tournaments have helped players improve their professional level, surpassing a new level in battlefield bravery and fighting spirit.
Meanwhile, football expert Phan Anh Tu said that owning another generation of young players who are more balanced, play with better tactical awareness and have stars who know how to shine is also an opportunity to think about further dreams.
Currently, Asia has 8.5 World Cup slots and is likely to continue to increase if FIFA increases the number of teams in the tournament to 64 by 2030. The Vietnamese team is currently ranked 18th, which in theory is very difficult if the allocation of World Cup slots remains the same as it is now.
It is not necessary to know the final decision of FIFA, but Vietnamese football has good materials and needs to be prepared mentally. 2029 is the time when the young generation of players today reaches maturity in their careers.
Coach Kim Sang-sik himself and the Vietnam Football Federation need to find a solution to the problem of building forces and inheriting personnel to maintain the competitiveness of the national team. This is not a matter of one morning or one afternoon.
A noteworthy point is that VFF decided to let the U21 young players participate in ASIAD 20 in Japan in October 2026, instead of the best names of the U23 generation. The coaching staff has compiled a list of 100 players of this age and created an opportunity to "test the fire". The above calculation is also applied similarly to the U19 players.
This is an important basis for Vietnamese men's football to concretize the advantages it possesses into glory and a higher milestone in the near future.
