V-League newcomers win bronze medal in the National Cup: That's also a success.

The disappointing defeats of two veteran teams, SHB.DN and V.NB, in the penalty shootout meant that two newcomers to the 2013 V-League, Dong Nai and DT.LA, had to reluctantly stop at the semi-finals of this year's National Cup and had to settle for bronze medals in Vietnam's second most important football competition.

Nevertheless, looking back at the history of the V-League, this achievement can still be considered a success for newly promoted teams.

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

Furthermore, the best performance of the newly promoted teams in the National Cup was mostly reaching the quarter-finals (the 2003 season and the 2005-2010 period). Meanwhile, there were only two seasons where the newly promoted teams advanced beyond the quarter-finals in the National Cup: the 2004 and 2012 seasons.

Winning the bronze medal in their very first season in the V-League is not a bad achievement for Dong Nai. Photo: VVIn 2004, despite being newly promoted, Binh Duong advanced through the preliminary rounds to reach the semi-finals of the National Cup. However, in that season, the team from Binh Dinh failed to overcome Binh Dinh in the semi-final, suffering a 1-3 defeat. Binh Dinh then reached the final and won the 2004 National Cup after defeating Dong A Bank 2-1 in the final match.

Last season, newcomer SG.XT showed excellent 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 "Saigon rich kids" continued to overcome SLNA in the semi-finals with a 3-1 victory to secure a place in the final.

And in the final match of the 2012 season, SG.XT defeated HN.T&T with a resounding 4-1 victory, making history in Vietnamese football by becoming the first team to win the National Cup in their very first season after being promoted to the professional league.

Thus, it can be seen that: although there is still some regret for Dong Nai and DT.LA, winning the bronze medal in the National Cup is already a significant achievement for these two newly promoted teams, an achievement only surpassed by the newly promoted SG.XT in last season.

According to Thethaovanhoa - DT