Unstable performance
Since receiving a large investment and purchasing many star players, Nam Dinh Club has never experienced such a difficult season in V.League 2025-2026. After the first 7 rounds, the home team at Thien Truong Stadium has only won 2, drawn 1 and lost 4. They dropped to 9th place with only 7 points and the gap with Thanh Hoa and Hoang Anh Gia Lai was not too big.
Nam Dinh even lost to teams facing many difficulties such as Becamex HCMC or Song Lam Nghe An. The two wins against Hai Phong and the rookie PVF-CAND were both difficult and could not reassure fans.
The story in the international arena is different. Nam Dinh Club won against Svay Rieng in the Southeast Asian Cup C1. However, no one can say that the V.League champion played well against the Cambodian representative. At many times, Svay Rieng attacked continuously and was very close to the equalizer 2-2.
Meanwhile, the matches in the AFC Champions League Two have partly brought joy to Nam Dinh fans. Brenner and his teammates won both matches against Ratchaburi (Thailand) and Eastern (Hong Kong, China). Experts have not rated Nam Dinh 10 for how they played, but at least 2 of their victories are still convincing.
More importantly, the tactics and playing style of Nam Dinh Club are not clear. The players lost the necessary cohesion in attacking coordination situations. In other words, entertainment is something that Nam Dinh has not been able to meet their needs.
Why is there such a problem?
Recently, the declining performance of Nam Dinh Club has caused coach Vu Hong Viet to face a lot of criticism. It is necessary to recognize that the pressure from regional and continental arenas forced the team from Thanh Nam to adjust all of its transfer policies. Instead of buying quality domestic players, Nam Dinh must focus all its efforts on purchasing foreign players.
As of October 2025, Nam Dinh has announced 14 foreign players and most of them are quality stars. But the problem is that they are only allowed to register 7 people for the V.League arena. In the Southeast Asian Cup, teams are allowed to use a maximum of 7 foreign players on the field and coach Vu Hong Viet can only use 11/11 foreign players in the AFC Champions League Two.
During the training sessions of Nam Dinh Club, there were up to 38 players including both "Western" and "wan". Preparing exercises for such a large number of players has never been easy for any coach. Mr. Viet had to calculate a lot to develop an operating plan for Nam Dinh.
Not to mention, the continuous disruption of personnel due to the nature of tournaments makes Nam Dinh lack a truly stable framework. Some players such as Mitchell Dijks, Caique or Arnaud are of different level, but are not allowed to play in the domestic arena.
Coach Vu Hong Viet himself must consider each foreign and domestic player position to ensure the harmony of all factors from personnel, achievements to traditional culture. A Vietnamese team, even in a continental tournament, cannot play with all 11 foreign players.
The statistics do not lie about the situation of Nam Dinh Club. Up to now, Nam Dinh's most effective striker is Lam Ti Phong - a domestic player who was brought in as a replacement from the bench. The rest, Brenner, Percy Tau, Caio, Romulo have not played badly but have not met the expectations of fans.
Nam Dinh Club needs to solve problems such as player spirit, professional barriers and above all, efficiency. On the contrary, if he continues his disappointing days, coach Vu Hong Viet can pay with his chair.
