V.League mid-transfer window 2026: What does the beat-keeper hear from the dressing room?

On a Tuesday afternoon training session at the auxiliary pitch of a club chasing the top of V.League, there were no screams and no focus whistle. Only the soft friction of studs on the grass and a coaching staff standing still, holding no board. I have been following this club since last season. At this point of the mid-season transfer window, everyone expects the team to buy a foreign striker, to replace a centre-back, to spend a few dozen billion VND to strengthen the squad. But what I heard in the corridor of the dressing room was not a transfer name. It was a repeated question: Who are we playing for? When V.League enters the second half of a season, people usually tell the story through the league table, through points and through transfer moves. The press chases each name released by agents. Fans take sides over this foreign player or that local star. But I do not chase news. I follow the rhythm of the team. And the rhythm of Vietnamese football this season lies not in contracts but in a story few want to hear: the fatigue of the old operating model. I follow the rhythm, not the story of the day. I have held that principle for 15 years of observing regional football. To me, the transfer window is the easiest place to deceive a writer. Clubs often spread false information on purpose — to raise a price, to hold on to a player, or to calm the fans. If a writer relies only on released statements, he becomes a second loudspeaker for the intermediaries. The dressing room is where the true intention of a club shows itself. There, a player ready to leave never trains as hard as those staying. A foreign player who just signed a new contract walks differently. A local player pushed to the bench tends to sit in the quietest corner. Outsiders cannot see these details. I have spent my whole career reading them. The context of this season makes everything more interesting. V.League is witnessing a clear division between clubs with strong financial power and clubs that must balance every cost. There are no shocking deals anymore like in previous transfer windows. Instead, clubs are calculating more carefully about the practical value of a player: Does he fit the team style? How many games can he play in a season? Will he create chemistry inside the dressing room? Those questions never appear in transfer bulletins. But they decide where a club finishes. Vietnamese national football has always been evaluated through the spine of national-team players. This season, I notice one common pattern among the most stable clubs: they do not build around one star but around a group of players who understand each other's rhythm. That understanding cannot be bought with money. It is built through quiet training sessions, shared meals, and many one-touch movements that do not even require looking up. As Vietnamese football moves toward high pressing and ball possession, the value of cohesion becomes even more important. A lineup full of brand-new stars can still lose to an old but well-rehearsed team, because pressing demands all eleven players to move as one unit. The story of foreign players in V.League this year confirms that. Clubs no longer simply pick tall, dominant strikers like a previous era. They are beginning to seek foreign players who can link play, join defence, and create space for local teammates. That is a significant change in thinking. But this change only works if the foreign player genuinely adapts to Vietnamese football — a place where match tempo, climate, and refereeing style force a player to adjust. A player from Europe may have great individual technique, but if he does not understand the physical side of the league or does not know how to stay calm under rough treatment, his value decreases sharply. Once after a match at Thong Nhat Stadium, I sat down with a Korean scout working in Vietnam. He said a sentence I have never forgotten: Vietnamese players do not lack technique, do not lack speed — they lack the habit of reading the game before receiving the ball. Watching the national team, when a midfielder receives the ball in the central area, most Vietnamese players take the ball first and then raise their heads to scan. Korean or Japanese players of similar level have already turned their bodies; they already know their teammate's position before the ball arrives. The difference looks very small, but it creates a gap in the number of forward passes during a match. I cannot blame only the players. This habit is shaped by youth-training curricula from many years ago, where coaches preferred fast and skilful players over players who scan. The stands are empty, but the dressing room still produces the truest sound. Once, while covering a match at the youth academy of a leading club, I watched U15 players being required to play a half-pitch combination exercise with a maximum of five touches. The Brazilian coach kept shouting one word: scan, scan again. The exercise had no goals and no winner. It was only about passes and turning heads constantly. I remembered my own story at the 2026 World Cup, when I mispronounced Mario Mandžukić's name three times on air. I was fiercely criticised online. After that incident, I spent one month learning the correct pronunciation of two hundred players' names. Mispronouncing a name taught me a lesson of respect. And I realised football is the same. If basic habits like receiving and scanning are not respected from an early age, correcting them at professional level is extremely hard. Speaking of young players, I want to mention a story rarely noticed by the press. V.League this season continues to see many U23 players only enter the pitch in the final minutes, after the team is already leading or has secured a favourable result. The minutes of young players in the top league have not increased compared with previous seasons, even though the Vietnam Football Federation has repeatedly emphasised that clubs must use young players. The reason is easy to understand: the competitive pressure on clubs is enormous. Club chairmen need league positions to keep sponsors. Coaches need wins to keep their jobs. In that context, young players are treated as risk. But the true risk to Vietnamese football is this: in three years, who will replace the current generation of defenders and midfielders? If clubs continue gambling on foreign players and ageing local stars, the national team will face a generational gap that is difficult to fill. I have often heard technical directors talk about a long-term plan. But few long-term plans in Vietnam survive the first transfer window. Every time the market opens, clubs are sucked into the buying-and-selling vortex. Sponsors want big names, fans want new stars, chairmen want headlines. When results do not follow, every long-term plan collapses. Coaches leave and the tactical framework falls apart. Young players who had just been given a chance return to the bench. That is the cycle I have observed for more than a decade. What interests me most in this mid-season window is not how much each club spends. It is whether they keep the core that went through the first half of the season. Champions are not the teams with the most stars. They are the teams that maintain stability in both personnel and tactics throughout the season. In Vietnam, this matters even more because clubs suffer heavily whenever they lose a key pillar. I call it the lever effect: a team losing three core players mid-season is like a car losing three important screws. The car can still run, but it shakes and becomes much harder to control at a turn. Another type of article I often see during the transfer window evaluates a club by the value of its contracts. Money in Vietnamese football is growing, but it is not yet being spent intelligently. Doha money can buy players, but it cannot buy the rhythm of a match. I remember clubs that spent huge money on a foreign striker but had no local midfielder capable of feeding him. The result: the striker had to drop deep to take the ball himself, wasted his energy, and was then scolded by the media for not adapting. In truth, the problem was not the striker. It was that the club had bought one part for a machine that did not exist. The development problem of Vietnamese football lies precisely in the coordination between levels. From the national team down to the clubs, from the clubs down to the training centres, there must be a common philosophy. If the national team plays high pressing and possession, the clubs should aim for the same style so the players are not shocked when promoted. But changing a training philosophy is a long, expensive process with no immediate results. Meanwhile, clubs face immediate competitive pressure. That contradiction cannot be resolved in a single window. It requires a consistent long-term strategy and, above all, the patience of everyone in football. I am not writing this to deny the value of the transfer market. Transfers are an inevitable part of professional football. They help clubs improve their squads, create competition, and generate revenue for all sides. But Vietnamese football leaders must see transfers as a tool, not a lifesaver. Strong teams are not built in the transfer office. Strong teams are built through better training sessions every day, better physical care and nutrition, and a dressing-room culture that respects everyone. The rope between the team and its fans never breaks; it only slackens. When many clubs face financial troubles, the bond with supporters becomes even more important. Fans who go to the stadium every week do not go to watch an expensive team full of stars. They go to watch a group of players who fight for their colours. The most successful Vietnamese clubs in building loyal fan bases are not necessarily the biggest spenders. They are the clubs that can tell their own story, bring players closer to the stands, and transform the stadium into a shared home for the community. At the end of last season, I attended an internal review at a First Division club. In a small meeting room, before the head coach spoke, an old chairman — a man tied to local football for more than 20 years — said to the players: remember you are playing for the kids in the stands. You do not know which kid among them will become the player replacing you in 15 years. I sat in the back row and wrote that sentence in the notebook I have carried through all my years on the job. In the dressing room, the truth has no need for a loudspeaker. It only needs one person quiet enough to listen. This mid-season transfer window will see new contracts, goodbyes and promises. But what I look forward to most is how clubs handle the pressure. The club that keeps its calm, its core group and the belief of its dressing room will come out of the season in the best position. I will keep following them and recording their rhythm — not to judge, but to understand where Vietnamese football is going. Because I truly believe football is not only about matches; it is about human stories, culture and values nurtured quietly away from the stadium lights. Once those values become strong enough, the league table will reflect real strength by itself. The biggest question is not about which club will spend the most money in the 2026 transfer window. The biggest question is which club will be brave enough to choose a different path: staying loyal to a philosophy, trusting young players and building a sustainable dressing-room culture. That is the path I will write about in the next part of this season-long observation series. An exclusive story is not meant to shock; it is meant to appear at the right moment. The next article will tell the story of a young player who refused a transfer offer to stay and give his best for the club that trained him.