Vietnam national team in a new phase
The 0-4 defeat to Malaysia using naturalized players after regulations a year ago turned out not to be as bad as many Vietnamese fans imagined. In addition to being returned justice by FIFA and AFC half a year later, the defeat at Bukit Jalil also opened up a team revolution for the "Golden Star Warriors".
Throughout the past 12 months, the Vietnamese national team has updated strong internal strength. The number of overseas Vietnamese players does not stop at Nguyen Filip, Dang Van Lam or Cao Pendant Quang Vinh. The national team welcomes new faces such as: Le Giang Patrik, Ngo Dang Khoa or in the near future Tran Thanh Trung, Le Viktor, Lee Williams, Vadim Nguyen. Even with the wave of good overseas Vietnamese players increasingly present in the V.League, a squad to gather this resource for the Vietnamese national team is a completely possible scenario.
In parallel with the presence of overseas Vietnamese players, coach Kim Sang Sik currently has up to 3 naturalized foreign players in attack, Xuan Son and new players Tai Loc, Hoang Hen. Fans' views on using naturalized players have also begun to become more open after the "missed" defeat against Malaysia. Fans understand that this is the time when many teams in the world, especially Southeast Asian teams, need to gather strength on many platforms to aim to realize the World Cup dream. And the Vietnamese team is no exception.
Of course, internal strength with the development of players from training academies, clubs and the national youth team system is still the "backbone" that Vietnamese football must improve and develop more. Fortunately, in the trend of gathering many foreign resources, the team still witnesses a successful generation of young domestic players. Dinh Bac, Van Khang, Trung Kien, Nhat Minh... generation at the end of last year won the SEA Games, U23 Southeast Asia and then made a splash with the Bronze Medal at the 2026 AFC U23 Championship. Many of them were called up to the national team and competed with their seniors at the ASEAN Cup 2026.
The story of Dinh Bac leading the ASEAN Cup 2026 top scorer list confirms that the Vietnamese team is not dependent on naturalized strikers. Fans are proud to witness the "nurtured" player of national football, capable of creating a reputation in the region.
Stepping stone for major tournaments
More than 1 year after the defeat to Malaysia, the Vietnamese team meets the "Malamese Tigers" again with the opposite mindset. While Vietnam continues to develop internal strength, consolidate its regional position and confidently move towards major playgrounds, Malaysia is gradually rearranging the broken piece. The heavy penalty from FIFA not only makes this national team lose the opportunity to participate in the 2027 Asian Cup finals, but also makes the strategy of finding "Ma Kieu" players in Spain or South America bankrupt. No ambition, no dreams, no specific strategies... are what this national football is experiencing.
Unlike Malaysia, as analyzed, the Vietnamese team continues to advance with resources from 3 groups of players. ASEAN Cup 2026 also witnessed for the first time these 3 groups have such good synthesis and mutual support! If 2 years ago, Xuan Son was a "strange swallow" in the squad with mostly domestic players, then at the present time, the structure of forces and contributions between groups has become more uniform.
Fans gave many compliments to goalkeeper Le Giang Patrik when he became a solid stopper in the goal, replacing Filip Nguyen or Dinh Trieu. The 3 naturalized strikers Xuan Son, Tai Loc, Hoang Hen made it difficult for opponents to block. While Thanh Long, Hoang Duc, Dinh Bac... also made a strong mark in both the attack and defense of the Vietnamese team.
It should be emphasized that ASEAN Cup 2026 is only a stepping stone for the ambition of the Vietnamese team. With increasingly expanded resources in breadth and increasing strength in depth, coach Kim Sang-sik has reason to increase his ambition at large-scale tournaments. And in the immediate future is the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026 in September or the Asian Cup 2027 finals.
Attractiveness for fans
The Vietnamese team has more good players, the team's achievements are promoted according to each tournament. That is the core attraction to fans. The matches in the group stage of the ASEAN Cup 2026 are also the lens reflecting that value. At every stadium where the Vietnamese team plays, the number of spectators in general and domestic fans in particular coming to the stadium to watch and cheer is large.
Two matches at My Dinh National Stadium witnessed tens of thousands of people watching, despite the bad influence of weather conditions and the difficulty in buying tickets. Before the ASEAN Cup 2026 semi-final against Malaysia, the online ticketing system recorded that 2 denominations of 500,000 VND and 1 million VND/ticket were sold out very early. A fiery atmosphere at My Dinh Stadium is predictable before Vietnam goes deep in the tournament.
In addition to the presence of fans at the stadium, the support of fans from afar is also converted into hundreds of millions of views on television platforms, newspapers and social networks. Although the ASEAN Cup takes place every 2 years, in each tournament, the Vietnamese team always receives the attention of home fans. This contributes to further promoting the value of the regional playground, even when the tournament is not on the FIFA Days schedule.
In the next few months, the Vietnamese team will continue to compete at the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026 as well as the Asian Cup 2027 finals. As analyzed, the current internal strength is enough to help coach Kim Sang-sik's team become more confident to compete with strong teams in the continent. That is the basis for the Vietnamese team's journey in Indonesia (host of the FIFA ASEAN Cup) and Saudi Arabia (host of the Asian Cup) to receive more encouragement from tens of millions of fans nationwide.
