Behind the story of 'five against one' in V-League

"One team cannot play against five teams. If Vietnamese football cannot stop this phenomenon, it will not be able to improve. HAGL itself, because of this, no longer has the motivation to compete for the championship, and is forced to send players abroad or play for fun to nurture players," said Mr. Duc on the sidelines of Cong Phuong's contract signing ceremony with the Sint-Truiden Club (Belgium) in Ho Chi Minh City last week.

For those who follow Vietnamese football, it can be understood that Mr. Duc is talking about the story of "one boss, many teams" dominating the V-League, making the championship chances of the remaining clubs almost non-existent. Mr. Duc's shocking statement took place in a conversation with sports reporters, so it cannot be considered the official opinion of a person who used to be the Vice President of the VFF. However, it can make the image of the V-League become negative in the context of many optimistic signals from the Park Hang-seo effect.

The problem is that Mr. Duc's statement does not have much basis in truth.

First of all, HAGL chose a different path to develop, not because of the "five against one" story. In 2015, Mr. Duc brought the entire first batch of players from the HAGL - Arsenal JMG Academy straight to the first team, making their average age in the 2015 V-League only 23.5 years old. Mr. Duc himself admitted at that time that "not being relegated is too good". Two years ago, in the 2013 V-League, HAGL finished in third place, only three points behind the top team Hanoi T&T (the predecessor of Hanoi FC). This shows that HAGL gave up on their own, switched to developing youth football and achieved many successes in this field, not because they were so oppressed that they lost the motivation to compete for the championship. Right now, when the average age of HAGL has increased by at least three years, the mountain town team has not improved in terms of level, even though it only won against opponents of the same quality.

Since Hanoi T&T started competing in the V-League (in 2009), starting the controversial period of "one owner, many teams", the capital team has won the championship four times, finished second four times and finished third once. These numbers prove their strength. However, in the four championships, Hanoi T&T had to wait until the final round twice to be sure of winning the championship. This detail shows that they also have to face fierce competition from their opponents.

The concept of "one boss, many teams" has only really existed in the last five years, after Quang Nam and Saigon FC "joined" Hanoi and Da Nang through certain connections to Mr. Hien. However, in the past five years, Binh Duong has won the championship twice in a row (2014 and 2015), Hanoi only twice (2016 and 2018), and the remaining time belonged to Quang Nam. But that year (2017), the Quang team won the championship when they had the same number of points as Thanh Hoa. Why not say Thanh Hoa was "bad", but instead say that Quang Nam won the championship thanks to "five against one"? That year, Thanh Hoa finished the first stage in the leading position but gradually declined and then lost to Quang Nam in the fierce stage of the race.

In the 10 years since competing in the V-League (2005 to 2015), Binh Duong has also won the championship four times, finished second twice and won the National Cup twice. In terms of achievements, they have done better than Hanoi. Right now, although they no longer have a large investment in their squad, Binh Duong is still the team that Hanoi fears the most when facing each other. It is difficult to predict who will win in the upcoming AFC Cup Southeast Asia final between the two teams. What Binh Duong has done shows that the biggest problem of the V-League is not "five against one", but that there are too few teams with championship ambitions.

Suppose, Mr. Duc does not "play for fun", does not promote too many young players to the first team and is willing to spend money to buy quality players like before... then HAGL, together with Binh Duong, Ho Chi Minh City or SLNA, will form a group of teams strong enough to compete with Hanoi. Only when there is a 4-5-way match like that can we prove whether the story of "one boss, many teams" is true or not.

After all, although they are in the leading group, Ho Chi Minh City's current capacity is still far behind Hanoi - considered a "miniature national team". Therefore, it is normal that they cannot win the championship, not because of "five against one" as Mr. Duc accused.