Hanoi FC won V.League 2019: Winning in a dull match

Last year, hosting SLNA in round 21 of V.League 2018 at Hang Day, Hanoi FC won 2-0, thereby becoming the new champion with a record of winning the championship 5 rounds in advance. Compared to last year, the match at Vinh Stadium was much more boring, Coach Chu Dinh Nghiem is having to save his energy for the 2 AFC Cup inter-zone finals on September 25 and October 2 with opponent April 25 (DPRK).

Pragmatic customers

Meanwhile, with a 7-point gap, the away team doesn't need to exert all their strength on Vinh field to win the V.League. So the Hanoi coaching staff chose a rather pragmatic approach to the match, keeping the match's tempo to the lowest level.

In fact, Hanoi is too strong this season. After the 0-2 loss on May 24 at Thien Truong Stadium, they had a streak of 12 matches with only draws and wins, including 5 consecutive wins. Even Viettel at Hang Day Stadium was leading 2-0 but still lost 5-2.

Thanh Chung, the "golden boy" of Hanoi with his goal against SLNA, became the best player of this match. Photo: VPF

In fact, the away team is now a level above the other V.League teams, so coach Chu Dinh Nghiem has many options for the championship match. Unlike the first leg at Hang Day Stadium, where they played a wave-like style, attacking wave after wave all over the field to win 4-0, yesterday Hanoi put both the home audience and players to sleep.

A match where not only the 4-man midfield Moses Oloya, Thai Quy, Papa Ibou Kebe, Quang Hai but also the 2 strikers Van Quyet and Omar, instead of attacking Nguyen Manh's goal, they focused on keeping the ball, using many horizontal passes.

The owner is not strong enough.

Knowing themselves and their opponent, the home team played a low formation. Khac Ngoc and Ngoc Toan tried to appear at the right time to prevent the opponent from scoring. At least, facing the strongest attack of V.League 2019, Memovic and Van Khanh, showed that SLNA's defense deserved to be honored.

Perhaps, if there weren't a few tricky moves to force both left-backs of Hanoi and SLNA to leave the field early, the audience wouldn't know that this was a match where the away team would win the championship, and the home team would have a chance to enter the top 3.

The goal came to the Hanoi players like “fate” forcing them to have 3 points to win the V.League. A very simple cross from Van Kien from the right wing, after 10 minutes of the second half, the center back Thanh Chung, who was known as a “rookie”, seemed to come out of the ground, headed the ball to the ground to score the only goal of the match.

Hanoi players happily welcome the 5th championship title. Photo: VPF

Coincidentally, at Vinh Stadium, Hanoi was also the team that could not stop SLNA from winning the 2011 V.League season, in that match they also missed a free kick at the end of the match. Now, Khac Ngoc also could not slow down the capital team's coronation in a match that was considered quite bland, if not the most bland in the last decade.

After the defeat, the chance of the Vinh home team to enter the medal group has narrowed considerably. Despite the resounding victory at B.Binh Duong Stadium, viewers still haven’t seen the stability of the attack, the proof is that up to now they have only had 2 consecutive wins.

Joel, despite scoring a hat-trick against B.Binh Duong, is still a player for small matches. Meanwhile, how to keep Memovic and a few key players is considered a more important issue than winning the title this season.