With inspiration from Nguyen Quang Hai, champion of V.League Hanoi FC defeated champion Turkmenistan with a score of 3-2 in the first leg of the semi-final of the AFC Cup 2019 region at Hang Day Stadium on the evening of August 20.
The player from Dong Anh scored a double for Hanoi before Nguyen Van Quyet brought the 3-2 winning goal for the capital team with a penalty goal before entering the return match at Kopetdag Stadium in Ashgabat a week later.
Although the ticket to the inter-regional final is still one match away from Coach Chu Dinh Nghiem's team in Tukmenistan, this emotional victory is of great significance for Vietnamese football, especially the V-League National Championship.
According to Footy Rankings, after Hanoi FC's victory over altyn Asyr FK, Vietnam will rise to 16th place in the Asian Club Championship rankings, replacing Malaysia in the upcoming update. With this ranking, Vietnam is only behind two countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranked 13th and Thailand ranked 8th.
Ranking in the club-level tournament rankings will decide their place in the most prestigious club-level tournament in Asia, the AFC Champions League. Although the Vietnamese national team has achieved high results in the Asian arena such as 4th place in the ASIAD, runner-up U23 Asia, and reached the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup, the Vietnamese clubs do not have similar results as the national teams. Most Vietnamese clubs participating in the continental arena were eliminated early from the group stage, Becamex Binh Duong's most significant achievement was reaching the AFC semi-finals in 2009, which was also 10 years ago. Therefore, Vietnam has lost their right place in the group stage of the AFC Champions League since 2016.
The increase will help clubs in Vietnam have the opportunity to directly enter the AFC Champions group stage in the following seasons, something that Malaysian clubs currently have.
