V-League rookie wins National Cup bronze medal: That's also a success

Regretfully losing to two veterans SHB.DN and V.NB in ​​the penalty shootout, two new recruits of V-League 2013, Dong Nai and DT.LA, had to sadly stop at the semi-finals of this year's National Cup and had to be satisfied with bronze medals in the second most important playground of Vietnamese football.

However, looking back at the history of V-League up to now, this achievement can be considered a success for rookie teams.

Statistics show that since Vietnamese football switched to a professional system, there have been two seasons in which V-League rookies were eliminated early in the first rounds of the National Cup: the 2001-2002 and 2011 seasons.

The rest, the best achievement of the rookies in the National Cup is mostly reaching the quarter-finals (2003 season and 2005-2010 period). Meanwhile, there are only 2 seasons in which the rookies have gone further than the quarter-finals in the National Cup, which are the 2004 and 2012 seasons.

Winning a bronze medal in the first season participating in V-League is not a bad achievement for Dong Nai. Photo: VVIn 2004, Binh Duong, despite being newly promoted, passed the first rounds to reach the semi-finals of the National Cup. However, in that season, the team from the land of Thu could not overcome Binh Dinh in the semi-finals and accepted defeat with a score of 1-3. The team from the land of martial arts then reached the final and won the 2004 National Cup after defeating Dong A Bank with a score of 2-1 in the final.

Last season, rookie SG.XT showed great form in the National Cup. After defeating K.KH 3-2 in the round of 16 and Thanh Hoa 3-1 in the quarter-finals, the "young master of Saigon" continued to defeat SLNA in the semi-finals with a score of 3-1 to win the right to participate in the final match.

And in the final match of the 2012 season, SG.XT defeated HN.T&T with a score of 4-1 to make history in Vietnamese football by becoming the first team to win the National Cup in its first season of promotion to the professional league.

So it can be seen: although there is still some regret for Dong Nai and DT.LA, winning the bronze medal in the National Cup is also a remarkable achievement for these two rookie teams, an achievement only inferior to that of rookie SG.XT in last year's season.

According to Thethaovanhoa - DT