Round 20 V.League: HAGL wins big, Hai Phong firmly holds the top position

The mountain town football team extended their winning streak by defeating Binh Duong 3-1 in the 20th round of the V-League on the afternoon of August 13.

The hero of HAGL’s victory was midfielder Tran Minh Vuong. The player wearing the number 11 shirt scored a hat-trick, thereby helping the Pleiku team narrow the gap with the defending champion to only 3 points on the V-League 2016 rankings.

HAGL plays better and better in the final stage of V-League 2016. Photo: Minh Tran.

HAGL did not play impressively at the beginning of this season. Therefore, they are always stuck in the red zone. The mountain town team and Long An take turns "occupying" the second to last position in the table - the position that must play a play-off to win a ticket to stay in the league. Therefore, the two teams always try to break away. There was a time when Long An took the lead, but HAGL then took advantage of the opponent's mistake to surpass them. To do that, Mr. Duc's young team took advantage of the home field advantage, defeating strong opponents such as Hanoi T&T in round 16 or Thanh Hoa in round 19, before welcoming Binh Duong this afternoon.

Continuing the excitement from the 3-1 victory over Thanh Hoa in the previous round, the players from the mountain town once again made the audience in Pleiku ecstatic with their impressive performance. HAGL seems to have started to adapt to the harsh V-League environment, as Van Toan, Van Thanh, Hong Duy, Minh Vuong play more and more confidently and maturely. Among them, Minh Vuong and Van Toan were very good today. Van Toan did not score, but contributed two passes to his teammates' hat-trick.

HAGL opened the scoring in the 38th minute after Minh Vuong's precise positioning to tap the ball into the net from close range. Trong Hoang headed the ball home to tie the score at 1-1 in the 59th minute, but just two minutes later, from a quick counter-attack, Van Toan accelerated and passed the ball accurately for Minh Vuong to tap the ball into the net. In the third minute of extra time in the second half, from a similar arrangement, Van Toan again created conditions for Minh Vuong to finish the final work, sealing a 3-1 victory for the home team at Pleiku.

This victory brought HAGL up to 12th place, with 21 points, three points more than second-to-last Long An, and at the same time dragged Binh Duong down to 11th place with only 24 points.

The competitor racing with HAGL isLong An also excellently defeated the home team Dong Thap 3-1 away in this round., thereby maintaining a three-point gap with the mountain town team. Meanwhile, the defeat at the hands of Long An brought relegation closer to Dong Thap. This coastal team has yet to win after 20 rounds.

In another notable match, at Lach Tray home ground,Hai Phong played excellently to defeat Hanoi T&T with a score of 2-1., thereby leaving the opponent five points behind.

Defeating direct competitor Hanoi T&T helped Hai Phong (red shirt) firmly consolidate the number one position on the scoreboard. Photo: Ngoc Dung.

Meanwhile,Da Nang unexpectedly lost 3-4 to neighbor Quang Namand missed the chance to chase Hai Phong. After reaching the top of the table in round 18, in just two consecutive rounds 19 and 20, Da Nang lost at home to teams considered "homegrown" such as Ha Noi T&T and Quang Nam. Therefore, they dropped to third place with six points behind the leading position.

Championship candidateThanh Hoa continued to disappoint when losing 0-1 at SLNA stadium.in the North Central derby. The only goal scorer against the Thanh team was striker Ho Tuan Tai, with a goal in the 25th minute. This defeat pushed Thanh Hoa to the middle of the scoreboard.

Round 20 results

V-League 2016 Scoreboard

According to VNE