Feet Leaving the Flank: Vietnamese Football, VAR, and the Melancholy of Collective Memory

On the night of January 2, 2026, I stood in the corridor behind Stand B of Việt Trì Stadium, where the Red River flowed silently a few hundred meters away. On the pitch, Nguyễn Xuân Son received the ball at the edge of the penalty area, turned, and in that instant, forty thousand throats held their breath. The ball went into the net. The way he ran toward the corner of the pitch, arms spread wide as if to embrace the entire sky of Phú Thọ, reminded me of another afternoon, in another city, seven years earlier. I have been writing about football for forty-one years. I have counted countless goals, countless passes, countless times the ball struck the post. But what remains after every match is never the number. It is the stride. It is the way a player tosses his tangled hair before sprinting. It is the breath of the woman selling sugarcane juice outside the stadium when the home side concedes in the ninetieth minute. Vietnamese football, in recent years, has been undergoing a shift I have never seen in any other football culture in the region. The feet that once ran along the touchline, that once dribbled past three defenders and crossed like an oath, are slowly disappearing. In their place are inverted wingers, numbers, models, algorithms. And I ask myself: is the traditional beauty of Vietnamese football being wrongly erased? The wind of Kazan taught me that youth never rolls slowly to schedule. To understand that shift, we must go back a few years. In 2026, the Vietnam Football Federation appointed Philippe Troussier, a French coach with a philosophy of ball control and building play from the back. He arrived with a promise to lift Vietnamese football to a new level, to escape the counter-attacking style that had helped the national team reach the third round of 2026 World Cup qualifying under Park Hang-seo. But that promise did not materialize. In the second round of 2026 World Cup qualifying, Vietnam were eliminated, finishing third in Group F behind Iraq and Indonesia. It was a shock. Not because Vietnam were eliminated — fans were used to defeats — but because of how they were eliminated. They played as if trying to become a different team, not themselves. The sideways passes in their own half, the slow build-ups, the whistles from the stands — all of it created a bleak picture. In May 2026, Troussier left. Kim Sang-sik, a South Korean coach who had led Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, was appointed. He inherited a team that had lost its way, a football culture doubting itself, and a generation of players who had just passed their peak. And then, in January 2026, Vietnam won the ASEAN Championship, beating Thailand 5-3 on aggregate over two legs of the final. Nguyễn Xuân Son, a naturalized striker of Brazilian origin, scored in both matches, becoming top scorer and best player of the tournament, before suffering a serious injury in the second leg at Rajamangala Stadium. That is the story of one year. But behind it lies a larger, longer, more painful story: the story of how Vietnamese football is struggling between past and future, between the beauty of free feet and the coldness of numbers. Throughout the 2026-2026 season, I followed hundreds of matches in V.League 1, from the old Hàng Đẫy Stadium in Hanoi to Thiên Trường Stadium in Nam Định, from Lạch Tray Stadium in Hải Phòng to Hòa Xuân Stadium in Đà Nẵng. I sat in different stands, heard different voices, and recorded what I saw in a small notebook, where I noted both the numbers and the moments that cannot be measured. The clearest thing I saw was the shift of wingers. Twenty years ago, when I was still following Vietnam's matches under Alfred Riedl, feet like those of Nguyễn Minh Phương or Lê Công Vinh usually found the touchline. They ran along the boundary of the pitch, dribbled past defenders, and crossed for the striker. It was an art. It demanded speed, boldness, and a touch of recklessness. Today, those feet find the central corridor. They cut inside, receive with the opposite foot, and look for chances in the middle of the box. It is a more efficient style. It creates more chances, more goals, more victories. But it also means the touchlines are slowly becoming a wasteland, where only lonely full-backs and memories of a bygone era remain. In V.League 1 in the 2026-2026 season, statistics show that the number of crosses from the flanks has fallen significantly compared with five years earlier. Big clubs such as Hà Nội, Công An Hà Nội, Thép Xanh Nam Định, and Thể Công Viettel all prefer wingers capable of cutting inside. Nguyễn Quang Hải, one of the most creative players in Vietnamese football, frequently drifts into midfield to create decisive passes. Phạm Tuấn Hải, a striker whose origins are on the wing, has also moved fully into the central corridor. This is not a phenomenon unique to Vietnamese football. It is part of a global trend that began in the 2010s, when Pep Guardiola and other coaches began using inverted wingers to create numerical advantage in central areas. But in Vietnam, the trend arrived later, and perhaps for that reason it has provoked fiercer debate. I had a long conversation with a young coach at the PVF academy, who had spent years training young players. He told me that in recent training courses, wingers are taught to cut inside from the age of fourteen. They are taught to receive with the opposite foot, to find gaps between defensive lines, to finish with both feet. But they are no longer taught to dribble past a defender on the touchline, to cross with the natural foot, to create miraculous moments in small, narrow corners of the pitch. It is a trade-off. And I believe it is a wrong trade-off. In football, beauty and efficiency are not always opposed. But sometimes we must choose. When we choose efficiency, we may gain victories. But we may also lose the moments that made us love football. Recall the most beautiful moments of Vietnamese football over the past twenty years. There is Nguyễn Quang Hải's magnificent free kick in Thường Châu in 2026. There is Nguyễn Văn Toàn's burst in 2026 World Cup qualifying. There are Đoàn Văn Hậu's crosses, a left-back whose left foot is like a magic wand. Those moments came from traditional wingers, who found the touchline by instinct. And that is why I worry. I worry that Vietnamese football is losing players like Nguyễn Văn Toàn, who can create miraculous moments in wastelands. I worry that young players are being taught to become machines rather than artists. I worry that we are trading the fragile beauty of football for numbers that never smile. Interestingly, while V.League 1 clubs increasingly favour inverted wingers, the Vietnamese national team under Kim Sang-sik has been trying to restore traditional values. In the 2026 ASEAN Championship final, Vietnam used wingers capable of crossing well, players who could deliver lofted balls for Nguyễn Xuân Son. It is an interesting combination. It shows that sometimes the old and the new can coexist. But it also shows that Vietnamese football stands at a crossroads, where it must decide what it wants to become. And that is why I want to talk about numbers. I am not a lover of numbers. I am a documentary screenwriter, a storyteller. I believe football is an art, not a science. But I also know that in the modern world, numbers are increasingly becoming football's primary language. And so I must learn to read them, must I not? In the 2026-2026 season, I tracked a particular metric: the number of goals scored from crosses from the flanks. In V.League 1, this metric fell from roughly twenty percent of all goals in the 2026-2026 season to roughly twelve percent in the 2026-2026 season. That means that for every eight goals scored, only about one comes from a cross from the flank. Conversely, the number of goals scored from central combinations rose from roughly thirty percent to roughly forty-five percent over the same period. That means nearly half of all goals in V.League 1 now come from central combinations. That is a number. And I want to hold it up to a new light. That number does not merely tell us that Vietnamese football is changing. It also tells us that we are gradually forgetting a part of ourselves. Because Vietnamese football, throughout its history, has always been tied to feet running along the touchline. From the early days of Vietnamese football, when players like Lê Thụy Hải or Nguyễn Văn Hiệp drove crowds wild with dribbles on the flank, to recent years, when players like Nguyễn Văn Toàn or Đoàn Văn Hậu continued that tradition. The touchline is part of Vietnamese football's identity. And when we erase it, we do not merely change how we play. We change how we see football. We change how we remember the most beautiful moments. But I am not a nostalgic. I do not believe we should return to the old days. I believe football must evolve, must adapt, must find new ways to play. But I also believe that in that evolution, we should not lose our core values. And that is why I want to talk about VAR. VAR has been applied in V.League 1 since the 2026 season. In Vietnam, as in many other places around the world, VAR has provoked fierce controversy. Its supporters say it helps reduce refereeing errors. Its opponents say it disrupts matches and strips football of emotion. I have followed VAR in V.League 1 over the past two seasons. And I believe both sides are wrong. VAR does not reduce controversy. It merely moves controversy from the pitch to the review room. VAR decisions never satisfy everyone. There are always those who believe the referee was wrong, that VAR missed a situation, that the technology was not used correctly. Nor does VAR strip football of emotion. It merely changes how we experience that emotion. When a goal is disallowed by VAR, the sense of loss is greater than when a goal is disallowed directly by the referee. Because then we do not merely lose a goal. We lose a moment. We lose a memory. In a world without spectators, football is left with only breath and truth. I experienced this in 2026, when the pandemic halted V.League for five months. I found a way into a stadium in Shenzhen, where I live, and filmed two hundred and forty minutes of footage containing only grass, empty seats, and the whistle of a security guard echoing again and again. Management asked me to insert simulated crowd noise into the film. I nodded in agreement, but quietly did not. I understood that football is not merely a game. It is a ritual. And when that ritual is stripped of spectators, it is left with only what is purest: the breath of players, the sound of the ball rolling on grass, and the naked truth of numbers. That is why I believe VAR, like other tools of modern football, is gradually stripping us of our rituals. It turns sacred moments into technical decisions. It turns emotions into numbers. But I do not oppose VAR. I only want to say that we must be careful. We must remember that football is not merely a game of numbers. It is a game of people. And those people, in Vietnam, are gradually becoming machines. I spent many months following Vietnam's matches under Kim Sang-sik. I saw a team trying to find its identity again. They no longer play the ball-control football of Troussier, the football that caused their failure in World Cup qualifying. They no longer play the counter-attacking football of Park Hang-seo, the football that carried them to the third round of 2026 World Cup qualifying. They are playing a new football, one that combines solidity and creativity. In the 2026 ASEAN Championship final, I saw a team that knew how to exploit its strengths. They used Nguyễn Xuân Son as a centre-forward, a man capable of holding the ball and finishing. They used wingers capable of crossing well to supply him. They used central midfielders capable of controlling the ball and creating decisive passes. It was a clever combination. It showed that Vietnamese football does not have to choose between the old and the new. It can choose both. But I also saw problems. I saw a team overly dependent on one player. I saw a team lacking backup options. I saw a team gradually losing its creativity. And that is why I worry about the future of Vietnamese football. Vietnamese football stands at an important moment. It stands at a crossroads, where it must decide what it wants to become. It can choose the path of numbers, the path of algorithms, the path of machines. Or it can choose the path of emotions, the path of moments, the path of people. And I believe the second path is the right one. Because football, in its essence, is not a game of numbers. It is a game of people. It is a game of emotions. It is a game of moments that cannot be measured. And if Vietnamese football loses those moments, it will lose itself. Every erased touchline is a forgotten memory. I have spent years following matches in V.League 1, from the old stadiums of the north to the newly built stadiums of the south. I have seen the most beautiful moments of Vietnamese football. And I have seen the most painful moments. But what I remember most is not the goals. It is the moments before the ball rolls. It is the moment when the national anthem sounds, when the crowd rises, when the players hold hands. It is the moment when all of us, wherever we are, whatever generation we belong to, feel part of something larger than ourselves. And that is something no algorithm can measure. I do not know what the future of Vietnamese football will look like. I do not know whether inverted wingers will continue to dominate, or whether traditional wingers will return. I do not know whether VAR will continue to provoke controversy, or whether it will gradually become an indispensable part of football. But I know one thing. I know that, however Vietnamese football changes, it will always be a part of me. Because football, for me, is not merely a sport. It is a way of understanding people. It is a way of understanding myself. And that is why I write. When I look back on the years I have spent following Vietnamese football, I see a long journey. I see afternoons at Hàng Đẫy Stadium, sitting with fans and hearing them sing. I see nights at Mỹ Đình Stadium, witnessing historic moments. I see mornings at Thiên Trường Stadium, drinking coffee and reading the papers before kickoff. Those memories, to me, are more precious than any number. And I believe that, for Vietnamese football fans, those memories are equally precious. That is why I worry when I see Vietnamese football gradually losing those moments. I worry when I see young players being taught to become machines. I worry when I see numbers gradually replacing emotions. But I also know that football always finds a way to adjust. It always finds a way to recover its values. And I believe Vietnamese football will also recover its values. Because Vietnamese football is not merely a game. It is part of a culture. It is part of a nation. And it will always be so. Vietnamese football fans do not merely love victories. They love moments. They love emotions. They love stories. And those stories will never be erased, whatever the numbers say. So when I think about the future of Vietnamese football, I do not think about algorithms. I think about children playing football on the streets of Hanoi, Saigon, Đà Nẵng. I think about their dreams. I think about the moments they will create in the future. And that is what gives me hope. Because football, in its essence, is never a game of adults. It is a game of children. And children never care about numbers. They care only about joy. I think that is what Vietnamese football needs to remember. It needs to remember that, whatever the numbers say, whatever the algorithms analyse, football is always a game of joy. And that joy cannot be measured by any number. When I look back on the 2026 ASEAN Championship final, I do not remember the scoreline. I remember the moment Nguyễn Xuân Son scored. I remember the roar of the crowd. I remember the tears of a middle-aged man sitting beside me in the stand. He wept, and I asked why. He said he had waited for this moment since he was a boy. He had waited for it for forty years. And now that it had arrived, he did not know what to do but weep. That is football. That is moments. That is emotions that cannot be measured. And that is why I believe Vietnamese football will never lose its identity. Because that identity does not lie in numbers. It lies in the hearts of the fans. Those hearts will keep beating, however football changes. And they will keep creating moments no algorithm can predict. So I will keep writing. I will keep following matches in V.League 1. I will keep sitting in different stands and recording what I see. And I will keep believing that football is an art, not a science. Because, in the end, what remains after every match is never the numbers. It is memories. It is emotions. It is the stories we will tell our children. And that is the most precious thing. When I think about inverted wingers, I do not think about numbers. I think about feet that no longer run toward the flank. I think about touchlines slowly becoming wastelands. I think about memories of a bygone era, when those feet created miraculous moments. And I feel a sadness. But I also feel a hope. Because I know football always finds a way to adjust. It always finds a way to recover its values. And I believe that one day those feet will run toward the flank again. They will create miraculous moments again. And we will feel the joy of football again. That is my belief. That is my hope. That is why I write. And when I look back on everything I have written over forty-one years, I see one clear thing. I see that football, however it changes, however it evolves, is always a game of people. And those people, whether they run toward the flank or cut inside, whether they play traditionally or modernly, are always the ones who create miraculous moments. And that is what I want to remember. That is what I want to pass on. Because football, in the end, is not a game of numbers. It is a game of people. And those people, wherever they are, whatever generation they belong to, are always the ones who create moments no algorithm can predict. That is what I believe. That is what I write. And that is what I want to leave to my readers. A belief in football. A belief in people. A belief in moments that cannot be measured. Because, in the end, football is not a game of numbers. It is a game of hearts. And those hearts will keep beating, forever.