Budget, academy football and the Asian push: the road to professionalism for Vietnamese football

When the referee shows a red card in the 89th minute and My Dinh National Stadium sinks into a roar that suddenly goes quiet, I remember Park Hang-seo's words: "Vietnamese football cannot live on emotion alone." That moment was not about a specific match, but about a reality lasting many years: we are good at warming hearts, yet still weak at making numbers sustainable. Ahead of the 2026/27 season, Vietnamese football faces three big questions: club budgets, youth development and competitiveness in Asia. This story does not belong to any single club; it belongs to the whole system. Fans often remember Vietnam's U23 team in 2026 with the image of players hugging and crying in Changzhou. I belong to the generation that watched that final in tears. But looking back with a cold eye, that moment was a rare highlight of a football culture still based on passion rather than structure. Since 2026, Vietnamese clubs have not created a stable system to keep talent, let alone develop talent for the national team. V.League budgets still depend mostly on owners' money, partly on sponsors, while broadcast revenue remains very small. This is different from the Thai League, which has sold a large regional broadcast package, or the J.League, where Japanese clubs can survive through tickets, merchandise and academies. The core issue is not that Vietnam is poorer; it is that revenue sources are not diversified. When a budget has only one channel, the fate of a whole club depends on one owner's pocket. When the owner struggles, the club struggles. When the club struggles, young players are the first to be sold to balance costs. Perhaps that is why the question "what should we do with Vietnamese football" always returns to the financial puzzle. I have followed many V.League matches last season. Some teams play defensive football simply because they lack the budget to sign quality foreign players. Teams with stronger budgets usually control the ball, but they also fall into the trap of individual dependence. From a tactical point of view, V.League 2026/27 will not be decided by coaches' philosophies, but by squad depth. A club with two quality foreigners and three domestic players in form can win the title, while a club with a good young generation but no key leaders will lose direction in the second half of the season. Modern football needs speed, pressing and space reading. All of that requires a serious physical foundation. However, talking about fitness and tactics without mentioning youth development is incomplete. The bright spot lies in academies if we know how to exploit them. Names like Nguyen Quang Hai and Nguyen Hoang Duc have proved the value of youth football. Quang Hai briefly played abroad before returning; Hoang Duc, despite staying in V.League, remains a rare player thanks to his tactical vision. Their success does not fully come from the system; much of it comes from individual will. To create more Quang Hai, we cannot rely on luck. Young players must enter high-level environments earlier, not only in the last few minutes when the result is already settled. I have seen many young talents burned because they were thrown into professional football too early, then disappeared after two seasons. In contrast, players sent on loan to the First Division at the right time often come back stronger. This is the blind spot of many clubs: they treat friendlies as the only way to develop players, while modern football already has data centers, individual training programmes and development plans for each player. Vietnamese football is also facing a big opportunity from World Cup 2026 qualifiers and the Asian Cup 2027. The national team has never played in a World Cup, but the gap is not as wide as people think. The 2026 World Cup in North America has expanded to 48 teams, and Asia has 8.5 slots. Vietnamese clubs need to understand that a national team cannot exist separately from the domestic league. Players sharpened every week in a fast and intense V.League will be the most valuable resource. But if the domestic league keeps operating in short-term cycles and buys famous foreigners just to attract fans, this opportunity will slip away. Many people think Vietnamese football must choose between investing in the national team and developing the domestic league. I think this is a trap. The national team and the V.League are not opposing goals; they are two levels of the same tower. To make the tower high, we must build a strong foundation. To make the foundation strong, young players must be allowed to make mistakes and correct them in a professional environment. In early August 2026, an online exchange with hundreds of fans gave me a discovery: they did not remember the score of many matches, but they clearly remembered the moment a young player scored in stoppage time. That says Vietnamese fans are ready to love football with their hearts, but they also need football to give back through decency in the system. I do not want to end with dry numbers. I just want to record one observation: V.League 2026/27 will not succeed because of a few blockbuster contracts, but because the system is run correctly. There must be transparent financial planning, standards for stadiums and youth training, and policies that encourage clubs to use domestic players. When the pitch no longer roars, we can hear football's sigh. That sigh reminds us that glory does not come from one night in Changzhou, but from thousands of unseen training sessions. The open question remains: will the 2026/27 season be one of wisdom, or just another season of emotion? I choose to believe in the people who run football day and night with responsibility. Football is not read by scores, but by the heartbeat of the stands. And that heart, Vietnamese people have never stopped beating.