National Cup 2026-2027: Four V-League Clubs Fall to First Division Sides and the Cracks Revealed at Home

At the 90+4th minute, the referee pointed to the penalty spot. Hoang Anh Gia Lai pulled one back, cutting the score to 2-3. But the Quy Nhon stands offered no lasting cheer. Because Pleiku Stadium is being renovated due to poor drainage during heavy rain, the mountain-side club had to borrow Quy Nhon as a temporary home. On that temporary home ground, without the familiar support of their fans, Hoang Anh Gia Lai collapsed against Hung Yen — a First Division side full of ambition. Earlier the same afternoon, Thanh Hoa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, a club that had just been relegated. And Hai Phong, also at home, fell 0-1 to Thep Can Tho. Eight qualifying matches of the 2026-2027 National Cup across a single weekend produced four defeats for V-League clubs against First Division opponents. Three of them lost at home. Only Bac Ninh, winning 3-2 away at First Division side Long An, preserved a shred of dignity for the top-flight sides. From the outside, it is tempting to label this an "earthquake." But if you sit long enough in the technical area and stand close enough to hear how teams set up their lineups, the pattern is obvious. I saw a crack on the map of Vietnamese football, and it started from the qualifying round — the stage most fans skim past while waiting for later rounds. Before dissecting each case, one basic structural fact matters. The National Cup is not the main arena for most V-League clubs stuck in the lower half of the table. The deeper they go, the higher the travel and lodging costs. Squads are thin and must be rotated to preserve players for the league. Meanwhile, avoiding relegation in the V-League matters far more than a deep cup run. So V-League sides often enter cup ties with a half-hearted approach, creating room for First Division teams — whose motivation is greater — to spring surprises. That is the familiar explanatory frame. But the frame is not enough to explain why this year produced so many upsets at once. Start with Thanh Hoa. The club from Thanh Hoa province is the clearest illustration of the underlying illness. They only learned they still existed shortly before the 2026-2027 V-League kicked off, with a thin squad because there was not enough funding to retain key players or sign new ones. That is the football story. The real story is the cash flow. Before facing Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa confronted a new financial worry. FIFA had just ordered the club to pay more than 305,000 USD — roughly 8 billion dong — to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a complaint with FIFA. If the matter is not resolved within 45 days from receiving the document on September 16, the club will be barred from registering new players for three transfer windows. The complication: the dispute arose during a previous sponsor's tenure, while the club has since been handed to a new sponsor. An old debt pressing down on a new club. With an 8 billion dong liability hanging overhead, no National Cup goal is important enough for Thanh Hoa players to leave everything on the pitch. The 0-2 result against Becamex is the logical price of a club forced to distribute its energy across twenty things other than football. Becamex arrived in Thanh Hoa with a quiet advantage. They had just been relegated and are now a promotion candidate. Relegation is a shock, but it also teaches a club how to play through fear. Becamex's squad was no weaker than the hosts, and they played with greater determination. They won without much difficulty. When a hungry side meets a panicked side, the hungry one holds the psychological edge for most of the first half. Move to Hoang Anh Gia Lai. This is the case that forced me to rewatch the footage most. The mountain-side club trailed 1-3 against Hung Yen by the 77th minute, before pulling to 2-3 from a penalty in the 90+4th. But the ending matters less than the period before it. Seventy-seven minutes in which a club once called a "sleeping giant" of Vietnamese football allowed a First Division side to build a three-goal lead. Pleiku Stadium is being renovated due to poor drainage during prolonged rain, forcing the club to borrow Quy Nhon as a temporary home. That sounds like a small logistical detail. It is not small at all. A young team, weaker this season than last, lost the only thing capable of compensating for its lack of composure: the atmosphere of home. When the stands are empty, I realized that football had been lying to us through noise. In Quy Nhon that day, there was no noise to lie with. Only a young team exposing every gap in its defensive structure. Hung Yen played with exactly what Hoang Anh Gia Lai lacked: ambition and organization. Coach Le Quang Trai's side, thinner than last season, faced a hungrier opponent and collapsed quickly. This is a familiar image: the mountain-side club faces a relegation battle nearly every season and loses a few key players each year without equivalent replacements. Transfer models may rate the potential of a few young names at this club highly. But young potential cannot replace dressing-room chemistry. It cannot replace a leader who lifts teammates in the second half. Now Hai Phong. This defeat drew my attention to a specific name. The Lach Tray hosts lost 0-1 to Thep Can Tho — a club that had just relocated its "residence" from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta and had lost its opening match of the 2026-2027 First Division. Having joined Thep Can Tho just days earlier, striker Thaileon scored the match's only goal in the first half. A newcomer, barely integrated, decided the game. That says more about Hai Phong's defensive preparation than about the striker's talent. And Hong Linh Ha Tinh. The club lost to hosts Phu Tho 2-3 on penalties after a 0-0 draw in 90 minutes. A goalless draw settled by penalties can be called a coin flip. But when a V-League side cannot score in 90 minutes against a First Division opponent playing at home, the question is no longer about luck. It is about intent. This is where I want to offer my contrarian angle. Four V-League clubs losing to four First Division sides in the same round is not evidence that V-League quality is declining. It is evidence of something else, less discussed: the gap between the relegation-battling group in the V-League and the top group in the First Division has narrowed to an alarming degree. That gap is about infrastructure, about money, and most importantly, about focus. We often think of the "First Division" as a lower tier in quality. That is only partly true. In football systems with stable professionalism, the gap between the bottom of the top flight and the top of the second tier is usually a few points and a few budget lines. Vietnam's problem is not that First Division clubs have become stronger — that remains to be seen. The problem is that V-League clubs without ambition no longer have enough resources to defend their status even at home. But here I must be careful, because it is easy to fall into the trap of excessive sympathy. Not every defeated club deserves pity. Let us be blunt: some clubs entered their cup ties with the attitude of people who had already calculated an exit. In football, planning an exit is professional. But it leaves an ethical problem for the fans who pay for tickets. When a club decides a cup match is not worth full effort, it is telling supporters that the match is not worth their attention. And supporters understand. The empty stands in Quy Nhon are an answer to that question. Morocco did not rewrite history; they simply read it in reverse. This year's First Division clubs are the same. They did not rewrite the map of Vietnamese football. They simply read the cracks long ignored by others, and read them aloud as results. Look at Thanh Hoa once more. This is the clearest example of how an off-field story decides on-field outcomes. A 305,000 USD debt from a previous sponsor's tenure. A FIFA document delivered on September 16. A 45-day deadline. Three transfer windows banned if unresolved. The players know all of this. They read the news. They hear their agents. And a question forms silently in their heads: will I still be paid next month. A club playing with that question in mind cannot press consistently for 90 minutes. It cannot. That is why I argue these defeats, in terms of club operations, were almost pre-written. Not by reading the table. But by reading the emails in the finance department's inbox. What about Hoang Anh Gia Lai? There is another way to see it, and I think it is truer than the conventional moral reading. An early cup exit may actually help the mountain-side club. They can focus on the V-League — where they face a relegation battle nearly every season. With a thin squad, removing one competition to pour everything into another is a reasonable, even wise, decision. The problem: when you choose that retreat in an official match, you must prepare to be seen as a quitter. The other two clubs — Hai Phong and Hong Linh Ha Tinh — have had decent V-League starts, with one loss and one win each. Their cup defeats are hardly surprising and also aim to save strength for the relegation race. This is the common logic of the league. When more than half the clubs treat one of the two official national competitions as a burden to cut, the competition system itself has a problem. When the stands are empty, I realized that football had been lying to us through noise. The noise of crowds hides the truth that a team can play without really wanting to win. The noise of medals hides the truth that a relegation spot is worth more than a deep cup run. But this year, the National Cup qualifying round took place in silent stadiums. And in that silence, the cracks surfaced more clearly than ever. I saw a crack on the map of Vietnamese football, and it started from the qualifying round. The crack is not that First Division clubs grew stronger. The crack is that V-League clubs without ambition are narrowing in resources, thinning in squad, and growing fragile in spirit. The National Cup is merely a mirror held up to that crack. It is not that they are weak; it is simply that we have never been patient enough to hear them breathe. But the breathing of the weak is not always the breathing of the defeated. Sometimes it is the breathing of a team that is winning, that is hungry, that comes from a lower tier with every reason to play as if their life depends on it. Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Hung Yen, Thep Can Tho, Phu Tho — those four names today read aloud what the league table cannot say. I recall that noon in Doha, when 40-degree heat slowed every stride, and I sat taking notes while the whole stadium roared. Football does not happen only on grass. It happens in the minds of the people organizing the match, in the ledgers of those paying wages, in complaint letters sent to FIFA, in press conferences where nobody asks about the club's electricity bill. The 2026-2027 National Cup is a short record of all of that. What I want to see next is not an apology from V-League clubs, nor an explanation. What I want to see is those same defeated clubs returning to the pitch, in the V-League, playing as if the cup had never been an option to let go. Because if they play the league with the same attitude they showed in the National Cup, then by season's end, Thanh Hoa's 305,000 USD or Hoang Anh Gia Lai's Pleiku pitch renovation will no longer be logistical issues. They will be an indictment. The National Cup qualifying round closed with four V-League defeats. The next round will show what is a short-term shock and what is a long-term signal. But one thing I am certain of: any V-League club entering the next cup tie with the old attitude will pay the price, because First Division clubs now understand they do not need a miracle to win. They only need their opponent to let go first.