Since the beginning of the 2025-2026 season, Hanoi club has not won any matches, ranking second to last in the V.League rankings. In the National Cup arena, the capital team also stopped early in the qualifying round after losing to The Cong Viettel.
Besides the pillars who are no longer at the peak period such as Van Quyet, Duy Manh, Hung Dung... the lack of vitality and poor expertise of the foreign players is also one of the difficult problems of Hanoi FC.
This season, they brought in some valuable contracts such as Ferreira Da Silva, Willian Marlon, Daniel Floro Da Silva or even Passira... However, these foreign players have not left any mark other than the signings of the audience.
Looking more broadly, over the past 5 years, Hanoi FC has registered up to 30 foreign players. But apart from Pape Omar, Rimario and Moses, few of the rest have impressed and no player has scored more than 10 goals/season.
In the first leg of the V.League alone, Hanoi FC soon replaced 3 foreign players due to unsecured quality: Keziah, Chidi Kwem and Jaha. This year, the same story happened in a loop. This shows the ineffectiveness of Hanoi FC in selecting foreign players.
The same situation with the representative of the capital is Dong A Thanh Hoa when they do not have a quality foreign player squad. Rimario has not yet regained his original form after a period of injury treatment, center back Mamadou has received great expectations but has not been able to play fully.
The most regrettable case was the case of Ribamar - Thanh Hoa's best striker, who was injured in the second round and was forced to miss a long time. Domestic strikers such as Van Thang, Nguyen Hoang or Ngoc My are not strong enough to carry the attack.
However, the difference between the Thanh team and Hanoi FC is the limited budget. Therefore, they cannot bring in million-dollar foreign players like their opponents.
In contrast to the difficult situation of Hanoi FC or Dong A Thanh Hoa, some teams in V.League 2025-2026 are showing effective use of foreign players, typically Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh. These are two teams that not only have financial potential but also know how to invest in the right direction.
Recently, AFC Champions League Two, Nam Dinh used up to 12 foreign players, including 1 overseas Vietnamese. Names such as Caique Santos, Lucas Alves, Mitchell Dijks, Caio Cesar, Romulo and Percy Tau all played impressively, helping the team play fairly against international opponents.
Strong investment and a clear orientation in personnel strategy are helping Nam Dinh gradually affirm its ambition not only in the domestic arena but also in the region.
Not as prominent as Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh is also emerging as a bright spot of V.League when possessing a team of foreign players competing cooperatively and effectively. Foreign contracts such as Rodrigues Gustavo, Janclesio, Geovane or Daniel Da Silva dos Anjos are helping the ancient capital team have significant stability in all three lines.
Ninh Binh's playing style is built on the collective, not dependent much on foreign players, still closely connected with quality domestic players such as Hoang Duc, Duc Chien, Ngoc Ha...
Both Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh have "huge" financial resources, but more importantly, they show alertness in their selection and long-term strategy.
While many teams are still struggling to find solutions to the personnel problem, Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh are gradually building a solid foundation to aim for bigger goals.
In addition to the above teams, The Cong Viettel under the leadership of coach Popov or Hai Phong under Mr. Chu Dinh Nghiem also partly showed the effectiveness of using foreign players after the first rounds.
