Vietnamese Football in 2026: The First Season of a Country Just Opening Its Doors

On a night in Nha Trang in 2026, the whole apartment block had just one radio. My father set it on top of the wooden cabinet, turned the volume down until only a hiss remained, and the whole family sat in silence waiting for the commentator's voice. I was only four then and did not understand what football was, but I understood one thing: when the AM signal came on, the entire neighbourhood went quiet as a sheet of paper. That was my first memory of this sport — not a goal, but a ritual.

In 2026, Vietnam had just passed the Sixth National Party Congress (December 2026) and was taking its first steps into the Đổi Mới reform era. The country was still poor, still carrying the subsidy system, ration coupons and the years of blockade and sanctions. Domestic football continued steadily through the national A1 championship, bringing together the familiar names of that period: Thể Công, Công an Hà Nội, Cảng Sài Gòn, Sông Lam Nghệ An. Meanwhile, the national team was almost absent from the international stage. There was no widespread live television, no social media, no highlights. Vietnamese people loved football with their ears.

Most pitches back then were still packed earth, and some matches could only be played after the water drained away. Players wore cloth boots and faded numbered shirts; some patched their shorts with white thread. But the paradox was this: precisely within that poverty, football became a spiritual asset that everyone owned a share of. One radio in the middle of the house, dozens of people gathered around it, listening to the commentator read out each player's name as if reading the names of relatives. Goals were not seen but heard, then retold, then redrawn by the imagination of an entire community.

Based on my memory of following football in those years, I came to see something that became even clearer later, when I sat in a studio surrounded by screens and data: when there are no images, people are forced to trust one another. The way the adults in my neighbourhood screamed when the home side equalised is still intact in me. Nobody saw the move, yet everyone stood up. That scream was not for any particular player — it was for themselves, for the feeling of being part of something larger than themselves. The stadium could be empty, yet inside that small room I could clearly hear a million hearts beating to the same rhythm.

And in the collective memory of Vietnamese football, people often recall 2026 as an era of primal football — innocent, artless, without calculation. But that is a blind spot. The romance of the radio years concealed a harsh truth: the years of blockade and poverty took from Vietnamese football almost an entire generation of talent. While world football entered the era of professionalisation, Vietnamese players still played on dirt pitches, ate rice stretched with substitutes, and had almost no chance of reaching the wider world. The beauty of the ritual should not be mistaken for the beauty of the game itself. People remember the goals, but I remember even more the moment the whole neighbourhood embraced after the final whistle — and I also remember that, behind those embraces, there were dreams that never got to step onto the pitch.

But I do not want to close this story on a sombre note. Because if 2026 taught me anything, it is this: Vietnamese football learned to love this sport before it learned to play it to proper standards. We loved with our ears, with our memory, with our sharing. And later, when colour television arrived, when the V-League arrived, when there were nights the national team made the whole country burst into tears, that root remained intact: football is the business of the many, not of any one person.

44 years chasing the ball, and in the end I realised I was running toward people. And I leave behind not a conclusion but a lingering thought: if tomorrow there is no more radio, no more hiss of the AM signal, will we still sit together to listen to a match — the way we once sat together in 2026?