Repeat over the past 10 years
The conference to deploy preparations to organize national professional football tournaments in 2025-2026 mentioned an important content. Accordingly, Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF) presented 2 options for the new season competition plan.
The common model for both plans is to temporarily take at least 1 month off to serve the U22 Vietnam team participating in the 33rd SEA Games at the end of this year in Thailand.
VPF said both of these options have been sent to professional clubs for comments. According to the record, at the conference, there were no club leadership representatives discussing the time of the 2025-2026 professional season, including the proposal to postpone the tournament for the 33rd SEA Games.
In fact, looking back at the past 10 years, there have been many times when Vietnamese football has not had consistency from the clubs themselves surrounding the V.League having to postpone the SEA Games.
At V.League 2015, VPF's post on the homepage was as follows: "With the consensus and approval of the clubs, as well as the best support for the national teams for the overall achievements of Vietnamese football, the V.League 2015 competition schedule has been agreed upon with 2 temporary breaks.
Accordingly, after the first 8 matches, V.League 2015 will have a break from February 15 to April 12, this break coincides with the Lunar New Year holiday and the competition schedule of the Vietnam Olympic team to participate in the U23 Asian qualifiers starting from February 24.
The second break of the tournament is from June 4.5 to 19 for U23 Vietnam to focus on training and competing for the 28th SEA Games and the national team to focus on preparing for the first two matches of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers on June 11 and 16".
But not every voice from the club agrees with this view. Veteran coach Tran Binh Su (Dong Nai) only agreed halfway and at that time spoke to the press: "VFF, VPF must comply with the competition plan of FIFA, AFC and the SEA Games organizing committee, and we also do not want the V.League to be away for too long.
However, this greatly affects both the team's expertise and finances. The club will be disadvantaged and have to pay for expenses because even though they are out for nearly 4 months and are on a vegetarian diet, they are still forced to pay fees and salaries to players. To adapt to long breaks, coaches have to change exercises because two breaks are equivalent to two training cycles".
No stops yet
V.League 2017 continues to have 2 months off for U22 Vietnam to prepare for the SEA Games in Malaysia. However, the team led by coach Nguyen Huu Thang was eliminated in the group stage. V.League then returned to the rotation with fatigue and lack of vitality.
Coach Chu Dinh Nghiem - then leading Hanoi club - was harsh: "The long break caused the players to return without being in the best form. A tournament that is interrupted too much will affect the quality of the profession. Clubs really want to play continuously to keep the rhythm, but every 3-4 matches, they take a break for a while, even interrupted for 2 months like that, then the players' performance declines, too many things are disrupted".
However, by 2019, V.League still had to make way for the SEA Games. The matches took place in a longer schedule, with finishing times 20 days faster than originally planned.
This comes from the request of coach Park Hang-seo when he wanted U22 Vietnam to have more time to prepare for the 30th SEA Games in the Philippines. However, the sacrifice from V.League also brought a happy ending when U22 Vietnam won the historic gold medal after decades of waiting.
The story of the V.League interruption continued 2 years ago. When it reached the 4th round, the tournament had to be suspended for up to 45 days so that national teams could gather. The FIFA Days break for the Vietnam team will only last for 9 days (from March 20 to 28), the rest will belong to the time frame for U20 and U22 Vietnam to prepare for the SEA Games and the U20 Asian finals.
Not stopping there, after this 1 and a half month break, V.League only organized 3 more rounds and then took a break of more than 1 month for Mr. Philippe Troussier's U22 Vietnam to attend the Regional Congress in Cambodia.
Coach Chu Dinh Nghiem once again expressed his opinion: "The tournament was broken too much. This break is difficult for clubs because players have to take a long break after catching up the 4-round competition.
Meanwhile, coach Vu Hong Viet of Nam Dinh said: "No tournament has a full month off, competing in 3-4 rounds and then having an extra month off. If I retire to serve the national team, it is too much, here is the youth team".
Looking back at the picture of the past 10 years of V.League taking a break for the SEA Games, perhaps, the club's leadership representative did not directly comment on the competition schedule, but from the perspective of the coaches, they could hardly be satisfied with the loop between the V.League and SEA Games break.
And this story can be completely repeated when V.League 2025-2026 gives way to U22 Vietnam to participate in the Southeast Asian Games.
