National Cup 2026-2027: Four V-League Representatives Fall, and the Real Reason Lies Beyond the Pitch

Last weekend, eight qualifying matches of the 2026-2027 National Cup took place over two days. Four representatives currently playing in the V-League left the pitch with defeats against First Division clubs. Three of them lost at home. Only Bac Ninh retained any dignity, winning 3-2 away at Long An. Eight matches, four falls, three of them right in their own backyard. If one only reads the results, one would call it a shock. But I have followed Vietnamese football long enough to know that shocks of this kind do not appear on their own. They are prepared in advance, through decisions that have nothing to do with football.

Over those two weekend days, I sat in Guangzhou, rewatching every tape. Thanh Hoa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, a club just relegated to the First Division and now a candidate for promotion. Hoang Anh Gia Lai lost 2-3 to Hung Yen at Quy Nhon, described as the temporary home ground of the mountain town club, because Pleiku Stadium is being renovated due to poor drainage whenever heavy rain persists. Hai Phong lost 0-1 to Thep Can Tho, a club that has just moved its registration from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta and had just lost its opening match of the 2026-2027 First Division. Hong Linh Ha Tinh fell to Phu Tho 2-3 on penalties, after a 0-0 draw across 90 minutes.

I hear news from the meeting room, but I write in the voice of the stands.

In Thanh Hoa, the stands were still full. The fans of the Thanh region are known for their patience, but that patience is being tested in a way unlike any previous season. The club only learned it still existed just before the 2026-2027 V-League kicked off. The squad is limited because there is not enough money to retain key players or sign new ones. This is the story of a club living day to day, let alone one conquering a secondary arena.

And then, before facing Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa confronted a new financial worry about keeping the club running. FIFA has just required the club to pay more than 305,000 USD, roughly 8 billion dong, to Rimario Gordon, after the Jamaican striker filed a complaint with FIFA. If the matter is not resolved within 45 days of receiving the document on September 16, the Thanh club will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows.

People see contracts; I see the human beings sitting behind the negotiating table.

The notable point lies elsewhere. The dispute dates back to the previous sponsor's tenure, while Thanh Hoa has since been transferred to a new sponsor. A debt belonging to the past, yet the price is borne by the current club. This is the kind of risk Vietnamese clubs often overlook when signing foreign players: delayed payment terms, unnoticed addenda, and verbal promises recorded in emails. FIFA does not care who the sponsor is; they look only at the legal entity named on the contract.

Some transfers live not on paper, but in a promise made at midnight.

For Thanh Hoa, exiting the National Cup in the first round may be good news from a cash-flow perspective. But it is also a sign that the club is being pushed into a defensive posture across almost every front, including fronts it once treated as rotation opportunities. Playing in the National Cup means travel costs, accommodation, bonuses, and extra wages for players who must play additional matches. A club that only learned of its own survival days before the V-League opener has no money for any of that.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai is a different story, but the same logic.

Pleiku Stadium is being renovated due to poor drainage under persistent heavy rain. The team must borrow Quy Nhon. For a club whose identity is tied to the mountain town, losing home advantage is not merely a sporting matter. Without the familiar support of home fans, the squad under coach Le Quang Trai entered the match with a very different mindset. They fell 1-3 by the 77th minute against a Hung Yen full of desire, before pulling one back to 2-3 from the penalty spot in the 90+4th minute. That goal changed nothing but the number.

I rewatched this match three times. Hung Yen played as if they were living through the biggest match of many players' careers. Hoang Anh Gia Lai played as if trying not to lose anyone else. That psychological difference is not recorded in any statistical table, but it was right there, in every duel.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai's squad this season is weaker than last season. That short sentence means any professional understands it. It means the club sold or lost key players, could not sign equivalent replacements, and was forced to promote young players earlier than planned. With the mountain town club facing a relegation battle nearly every season, concentrating fully on the V-League is no longer a choice but a condition for survival.

Losing early in the National Cup, for Hoang Anh Gia Lai, may be a good thing.

Let us say plainly what few in the profession want to say publicly.

The National Cup is not the main arena for many V-League clubs, especially those without championship ambitions. The deeper you go, the more travel and accommodation costs. The deeper you go, the more you must worry about squad depth, injuries, and the fitness of key players. Meanwhile, staying in the V-League matters far more, both competitively and financially. A V-League place means broadcast rights, sponsors, advertising contracts, an entire economic ecosystem that a First Division place cannot match.

So these V-League representatives tend to approach the National Cup rather casually. They create conditions for First Division clubs to spring surprises when showing greater determination. This is not the collapse of a football nation, nor proof that V-League quality is declining. It is the result of resource allocation choices, calculated before every season.

What the scoreboard does not say: these four defeats were decided before the ball rolled, in the budget meetings of the 2026-2027 season.

Hai Phong is the clearest example.

The port city club has not started the 2026-2027 V-League badly, with one loss and one win. They played at home against Thep Can Tho, a club that has just moved its registration from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta and had just lost its opening match of the 2026-2027 First Division. On paper, this was the easiest opponent among the First Division sides to meet in the National Cup qualifying round.

But just days after joining the club, striker Thaileon scored the only goal of the match in the first half. A striker newly arrived, not yet familiar with teammates, not yet used to the climate, not yet used to the pitch. Yet he scored. What does that goal reflect? It reflects that the First Division club entered this match with better mental preparation than the home side.

For Hai Phong, the 0-1 defeat is not a disaster. The club still has its full objectives in the V-League. But it is a reminder of a structural problem: the squads of mid-tier V-League clubs are not deep enough to play two fronts. When forced to choose, they choose the competition that pays more. That is the law of professional football, not cowardice.

Hong Linh Ha Tinh took a slightly different path.

The central club lost 2-3 on penalties to hosts Phu Tho, after a 0-0 draw across 90 minutes. A goalless draw, then defeat from 11 metres. Fans might say this was a match where the club simply lacked a bit of luck. But looking at how the club approached the match, one sees a side willing to stretch time, willing to reach the penalty shootout, and willing to take the risk. For a club whose season objective is survival, playing an extra 90 minutes in a secondary competition is not something anyone wants.

Hong Linh Ha Tinh also started the 2026-2027 V-League decently, with one loss and one win. The National Cup exit was not surprising. It was part of the plan.

This is where the story becomes more interesting than its surface.

If one only reads results, one would conclude that First Division clubs are making great strides. Long An, Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Hung Yen, Thep Can Tho, Phu Tho. Five First Division names brought down four V-League clubs. One could argue the First Division's quality is being raised, that the gap between the two tiers is narrowing. I believe that is only partly true.

The truth is barer than that, and it lies elsewhere.

Becamex Ho Chi Minh City is not a typical First Division club. This is a club just relegated and now a candidate for immediate promotion. Their squad is no weaker than hosts Thanh Hoa. With equivalent strength and greater determination, Becamex Ho Chi Minh City won without much difficulty. A 0-2 win at Thanh Hoa is not a shock; it is a predictable result for anyone who understands both sides' real strength.

Thep Can Tho is the same. This is a club that has just moved its registration from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta, carrying a new identity and a new hunger. First Division clubs in a restructuring phase often have a special advantage: they have nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, you play differently.

Hung Yen is in that group. Phu Tho is in that group.

The blind spot of the official story: this is not a story about First Division clubs growing stronger. It is a story about V-League clubs growing weaker, and choosing to admit it through a calculated defeat.

From the World Cup stands, I saw a transfer market that had never been told.

But one more thing must be said, because it matters.

Not every V-League club views the National Cup the same way. Bac Ninh won 3-2 away at Long An. They were the only V-League representative to win outright over the two weekend days. Bac Ninh is neither the richest club nor the most ambitious. But they chose to enter the match with a different spirit. And they won.

The difference between Bac Ninh and the other four lies not in squad quality. It lies in internal decisions.

This is what I always try to explain in my analyses. When a club loses, people usually look for causes in tactics, in player form, in refereeing mistakes. But most defeats in modern football are decided before the match begins, in meetings no one is allowed to record. There, people discuss budgets, season objectives, and whether to spend 500 million dong on a trip to Phu Tho.

I lived through the summer of 2026, when the pandemic halted every league and clubs shut their doors. The summer of 2026 taught me this: football stops rolling, but human hearts do not. When money runs out, people still have to make decisions. And those decisions often shape several seasons to come.

The same is happening in Vietnamese football this season, only on a smaller scale and with less attention.

Looking at Thanh Hoa, one sees a 305,000 USD debt to Rimario Gordon. But behind that debt lies a whole question about how Vietnamese clubs manage foreign player contracts. Debts like this do not appear overnight. They accumulate over seasons, across leadership handovers, across sponsor changes. And when FIFA sends a document, the name that bears it is the name on the current business licence, not the name that once signed the deal.

The 45-day deadline from September 16 is not a talking-point number in the sensational sense. It is an administrative deadline, counted in days. But its consequences are anything but administrative: three transfer windows banned from registering new players. For a club struggling to survive, three transfer windows are three closed opportunities, three chances missed to patch a defence, three chances missed to replace an injured striker.

At 62, I no longer chase breaking news; I wait for the way people keep their word.

And in Thanh Hoa, the way people keep their word to Rimario Gordon is an open question.

What about the transfer market?

The National Cup is not a competition of big contracts. But it is a competition that reveals much about clubs' financial health. A club fielding a strong lineup in the National Cup is a club with money, depth, and ambition. A club resting its key players is a club forced to choose. That choice, in turn, will shape deals in the mid-season transfer window.

What I see after eight qualifying matches is a sharply divided picture. The group of clubs with money, ambition, and depth is gradually separating from the group only capable of survival. This division will be reflected in the winter transfer market, when weak clubs must sell key players to balance budgets, while strong clubs compete to buy those players cheaply.

In the First Division, Becamex Ho Chi Minh City and Hung Yen are showing they are not merely clubs rising from below. They are clubs being invested in with specific objectives. And such clubs, once promoted to the V-League, will shift the league's balance of power.

In the V-League, clubs like Thanh Hoa and Hoang Anh Gia Lai will face a longer season than ever. Two straight defeats at the start of the 2026-2027 V-League put Hoang Anh Gia Lai in a difficult position. Every season, the mountain town club faces a relegation battle, and this season, with a weaker squad, that battle will be tighter.

But losing early in the National Cup, for them, may be a good thing. That is a sentence many Hoang Anh Gia Lai fans will nod to, even if their hearts ache a little.

I want to devote the closing part of this piece to something I have believed through more than forty years in the profession.

Vietnamese football is at a stage where economic decisions increasingly shape results on the pitch. The National Cup is no longer an arena where small clubs spring surprises through pure football. It is an arena where small clubs spring surprises because big clubs choose not to go all out. That is something organisers, sponsors, and football people need to think about.

If a national competition is one the top clubs do not want to win, where does its value lie?

That question is not for coaches, who merely do their job with the squad at hand. It is for those in the meeting room, those who decide budgets, those who sign sponsorship deals. And it is for the fans, who still come to the stadium on weekends, still sing, still buy shirts, still believe in a club that sometimes no longer believes in a secondary front.

Look at the Quy Nhon stands, where Hoang Anh Gia Lai must borrow a ground as home. Those stands are not as full as at Pleiku. But those present still sing. They sing for a losing club, for a front the leadership may have ranked low in priority. That singing says what the scoreboard cannot.

Esports and football share one thing: behind the screen is a heart that knows pain.

And here, behind every scoreline, are hearts that have followed their club for decades.

The 2026-2027 National Cup still has rounds ahead. Four V-League representatives are out. Bac Ninh goes on and will be the only top-flight representative remaining in the next round. First Division sides like Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Hung Yen, Thep Can Tho, and Phu Tho will enter the next round with the mindset of those with nothing to lose. And who knows, one of them may reach the final match.

What I await is not another shock. What I await is the answer to a simple question: when the next season begins, how will V-League clubs look at the National Cup? Will they keep calculating, or will they find a way to make this competition worth more?

That answer will not come from a match. It will come from meetings held over the coming months, in rooms with no audience. And I, at 62, will still sit there, waiting for the way people keep their word.

The match ends. The stands go dark. But the story keeps being written, in a place the cameras cannot reach.