Vicious cycle

(Baonghean) - After the expectations, then the buzz and noise outside the field, V.League 2015 has ended in the indifference of the majority of Vietnamese football fans. It seemed that the 2015 season would bring many bright spots to Vietnamese football with HAGL being the youngest team since the establishment of V.League, a Thanh Hoa of Mr. De and later FLC being invested with the ambition to change the color of the medal, or Than Quang Ninh intending to "rebel" with Hai Phong to overthrow B.Binh Duong, Ha Noi T&T... but in the end, it was all just a "midday dream"!

The football teams B.Binh Duong and Ha Noi T&T still show their financial strength to be the "big brother" in the Vietnamese football village today when they share the top two positions after the end of the season. The other teams can only "have fun" in the first few matches of the season. When the season ends, the big teams like Binh Duong, Ha Noi T&T, HAGL... let their players rest, while the "poor" teams SLNA, Can Tho, Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa... are worried about "first" to keep their players and "cut their coat according to their cloth" for the next season.

Due to lack of money to retain players, SLNA's pillars such as Trong Hoang, Cong Vinh, Van Hoan... have left one after another.

And the vicious cycle began again. Due to lack of money to retain key players, poor teams let their players “leave” to find teams with potential and ambition. The poor teams became even more weak because their forces were damaged and gutted. When the new season began, the leaders of these teams repeated the refrain “due to limited financial resources and uneven forces, we have to try our best in every match”. It is true that they tried to play very passionately in the early matches of the season, but when they earned enough safe points for the relegation goal, everything “went back to normal”.

SLNA is still "trying to get into the top 5 of the season" but it doesn't matter if they fall out of the top 7 like this season because they blame it on "inability to do what they want"! Than Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Khanh Hoa teams are still "trying to get into the top 3" but if they fall down to the bottom, it's normal. Because some Vietnamese team leaders, coaches, and players still believe "you get what you pay for", the boss invests as much as they play "moderately", why play for the sake of it, or else they'll have to pay less next season! This leads to the surprise, the competition of V.League is becoming more and more bland and boring.

Duc Dung