Tonight (February 26), the 2024 Vietnam Golden Ball Gala will take place in Ho Chi Minh City. attention is on the category of Best Men's Player - Men's Golden Ball.
With Thanh Chung and Quang Hai not attending the Gala, the candidates for this title have reduced to 3 faces, namely Nguyen Tien Linh, Nguyen Hoang Duc and Pham Tuan Hai.
Nguyen Tien Linh is the brightest player in winning the 2024 Vietnam Men's Golden Ball. In 2024 and the first two ASEAN Cup finals in 2025, Tien Linh scored 23 goals and assisted 3 times.
No Vietnamese player has left a mark with as many goals as Tien Linh in the past year. The player born in 1997 is also in the top 3 best strikers in the history of the Vietnam national team, with 25 goals in 59 matches. He only needs 3 more goals to rise to 2nd place, surpassing legend Le Huynh Duc.
Nguyen Hoang Duc is considered a direct candidate to compete with Tien Linh. At the 2024 ASEAN Cup, in the role of a holding midfielder, this player made his mark in quiet missions, but especially important for the Vietnam team.
In the first and second leg of the final against Thailand, Hoang Duc played excellently and was highly appreciated by experts. A clearer proof is that according to the rankings of the ASEAN Cup 2024 organizing committee, Hoang Duc holds the No. 1 position in the list of the best players of the tournament.
Also in 2024, Hoang Duc set a record for the player who received the highest hand (under one contract) with 30 billion VND/3 years in Phu Dong Ninh Binh. In the First Division, Hoang Duc is the locomotive that helps this team gradually move towards V.League 2025-2026.
Meanwhile, Pham Tuan Hai is the player with more titles than Hoang Duc. In addition to winning the 2024 ASEAN Cup with the Vietnamese team, the striker born in 1998 also won the National Cup runner-up position with Hanoi FC.
In 37 matches in 2024 and early 2025, Tuan Hai scored 13 goals and assisted 4 times for the Vietnamese and Hanoi teams. Notably, Tuan Hai is also the first player from Vietnam to leave his mark in 2 goals in an ASEAN Cup final in history.
The big obstacle for Tuan Hai is that he has to wait until the second leg of the ASEAN Cup final between Thailand and Vietnam to shine. Before that, throughout the tournament, he entered the field in a modest amount of time, resulting in less focus than his other teammates.
If Tuan Hai or Tien Linh are named, one of the two players will win the Vietnam Golden Ball for the first time in his career.
In the case of Hoang Duc, the player from Hai Duong will score a hat-trick for the Vietnam Golden Ball. He will equal the achievements of the legends Le Huynh Duc and Le Cong Vinh in the history of this noble award.
