V.League is everything
At the end of 2024, Vietnamese football will have a young player going abroad, Ho Tung Han. The goalkeeper of Da Nang Club will go to Singapore with a short-term contract of 4 months. However, over the past 10 years, football in the Lion Island has never been superior to Vietnam, from the FIFA rankings to the national tournament rankings in Asia.
It is a reality that, after Nguyen Canh Anh and Vu Minh Hieu (Hoang Anh Gia Lai) left Cheonan City in K.League 2, within the past year, no Vietnamese player has chosen to play in more severe tournaments to try their hand.
Pham Tuan Hai has just extended his 3-year contract with Hanoi FC with a clause to facilitate him to play in the J.League. However, up to now, he is still playing domestically and has not shown any signs of going to Japan.
Previously, Nguyen Hoang Duc was thought to have gone to Thailand to play football before finally deciding to be promoted to the First Division to join Phu Dong Ninh Binh club, with a hand-playing fee of a record in Vietnam.
More than a year ago, Kashima Antlers Club of J.League showed interest in Dinh Bac after his promising performance in the 2023 Asian Cup finals. This team wants to bring Dinh Bac to Japan with a plan to compete in the lower league before returning to the first team if possible. At the same time, Kashima Antlers are willing to pay 8,000 USD/month (more than 200 million VND) for Dinh Bac to agree to go abroad. However, the player born in 2004 has problems with contracts with Quang Nam and Hanoi. And then, after many scandals, Dinh Bac stayed in the V.League and joined Hanoi Police.
Another young player who is considered to have the potential to go abroad is Nguyen Cong Phuong. It is known that the striker born in 2006 has received the attention of a number of Japanese and Korean clubs. However, The Cong Viettel decided to keep the "precious gem" instead of letting him try his hand abroad.
What is the path for Vietnamese players?
From the above cases, we can see 2 reasons why Vietnamese players struggle to go abroad.
From a subjective perspective, players tend to want to stay in the V.League to receive a signing bonus rather than adventuring abroad. The unsuccessful going abroad of Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong, Quang Hai... made young players hesitant to leave the V.League safety zone. Van Toan - a name very eager to play football in Korea - also only stayed in K.League 2 for less than a year.
With an objective perspective, the constraints of contracts from the home clubs make it difficult for Vietnamese players to leave the domestic playground.
Van Hau, Cong Phuong, Xuan Truong, Tuan Anh... went to the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Thailand on loan from their home team. Dinh Bac could not even go abroad when his youth training contract with Quang Nam lasted for several years. On the other hand, Japanese or Korean clubs cannot spend a large amount of money just to release contracts for faces from Vietnam - a football community with a lower class.
The most likely option at this time for Vietnamese players to access the foreign environment is still just for linkages and training. For example, the Bundesliga has just signed a memorable contract with the Vietnam Football Federation until 2028. Through this commitment, some young Vietnamese players can play friendly matches or go to Germany to learn and rub shoulders in the short term. Or in April, through a sponsorship program, La Liga will select 4 male players and 4 excellent female players from Vietnam to Spain for training. However, the duration of this process is less than 1 month.
The long-term hope could be Japan. Recently, J.League has created more influence in Vietnam through broadcasting the tournament on Ho Chi Minh City Television. This can be considered the first step in enhancing the influence in the Vietnamese market of the No. 1 tournament in Japan. Maybe, in the near future, the teams in the J.League will be more interested in V.League players.
