Vietnamese Women's Football: From the World Cup Door to Ground That Is Still Uneven

Nobody cried in the dressing room in Navi Mumbai on January 30, 2026. The final whistle closed a quarter-final defeat, 1-3 to China, at the AFC Women's Asian Cup, yet the room held a strange silence — the silence of people who had just realised they had touched something bigger than a single match. Elsewhere in Asia that night, people were recalculating the bracket. Reaching the quarter-finals meant that, for the first time in its history, the Vietnam women's national team had qualified for a Women's World Cup. In more than thirty years behind a microphone, I have learned this: sport is never only about the score. Some moments are remembered not for the number on the board but for how far a football culture had to travel to be present at all. And precisely for that reason, I trained myself to ask the reverse question: when the stage lights go out, what remains? Vietnamese women's football did not begin with glamour. The national team was founded in the 1990s, considerably later than several regional neighbours, and for its first two decades it existed almost as a footnote in the evening sports bulletin. Players trained on faded artificial turf, ate from a communal canteen, and many still worried about putting food on the family table back home. There was a period when, to travel to a regional tournament, the whole squad shared out their meal allowances, and a women's player buying her own boots out of pocket was hardly a rarity. The Vietnam women's team, often nicknamed the Golden Star Women Warriors, went through several coaching regimes. But it was under head coach Mai Duc Chung that the side gradually settled into a stable identity: disciplined defending, quick transitions, and a heavy emphasis on set pieces. That identity was built on stubbornness rather than resources, and in many ways it reflected the real conditions of women's football in the country. Looking at the run of results over the past decade, it is easy to be dazzled by the successive SEA Games gold medals and the 2026 AFF Women's Championship title. But if we stop at the honours, we miss the most important part of the story. The results of a women's national team in Southeast Asia have never been an adequate measure of the health of an entire women's football ecosystem. What I want to point to is not the modesty of those medals but the distance between the national team and everything beneath it. The national team is the tip of the iceberg; the domestic women's championship is the submerged mass that determines the depth. And that submerged mass has, for many years, been the hardest part to see. The Vietnamese Women's National Championship, featuring familiar names such as Ha Noi I, Ho Chi Minh City I, Phong Phu Ha Nam and Than Khoang San Viet Nam, and later Thai Nguyen T&T and Son La, was long regarded as the highest level of women's football in the country. Yet the number of participating teams has usually hovered between six and eight, the schedule has at times been compressed for lack of funding, and live attendances have often been countable on two hands. Based on my own experience following matches across many seasons, one paradox keeps repeating: the technical quality of the women's league is not low, but public access to it is severely limited. A women's match can show a pass completion rate above seventy percent, with carefully constructed three-player combinations, yet its online audience may be a tiny fraction of a men's friendly. That gap does not reflect playing quality. It reflects how we allocate attention. At 56, I still ask one question: where are women scoring in this game? That question is not only for the players; it is for people in my own line of work. If microphones and cameras are not pointed at the right places, a football culture can play beautifully and still exist only in the memory of a few thousand people. Start with the pitch itself. In a typical domestic women's league match, the strongest sides commonly line up in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. The back line works on zonal principles, full-backs push high to stretch the pitch, and a holding midfielder shields in front of the defence. Interestingly, many Vietnamese women's teams are far better in transition than in sustained possession. When behind, they tend to press high and accept risk; when level, they favour safety. There is one figure I have tracked that I find telling. In several domestic matches, teams' pass completion fluctuated between 74 and 82 percent when playing their intended game. But once they fell behind, that number often dropped below 70 percent, accompanied by a surge in long balls. In other words, game management, not basic skill, is what these sides still need to develop. That is why I always insist that Vietnamese women's football does not lack technique; it lacks the environment in which technique is routinely tested. A young female player can only grow when she plays many high-pressure matches, not a handful per year. The development of a football culture lies not in producing a few stars, but in building a system deep enough for the next star to emerge naturally. And then the biggest stage arrived. At the 2026 Women's World Cup, Vietnam were drawn into the harshest possible group. They lost 0-3 to the United States, 0-2 to Portugal, and 0-7 to the Netherlands. On the scoreboard, that is three defeats and no points. But read only the scoreboard and you miss what actually happened on the pitch. Against the United States, Vietnam organised a low block with two compact lines. The defenders did not lunge recklessly but held their distances and accepted passing in less dangerous areas. At times the team sustained its shape for more than ten minutes without conceding a clear chance. For a side at its first World Cup, facing a multiple-time world champion, holding a structured defensive line for such a spell is a meaningful technical signal. The Portugal match was a lesson in the difference at the very top. Vietnam had spells of good possession and built out from the back, but a single lapse or one exposed gap was punished instantly. That is the definition of the elite: the ability to convert an opponent's small error into a goal. It is also the largest gap between Vietnamese women's football and the world's leading sides. The Netherlands game, a 0-7 defeat, is one I urge young viewers to rewatch rather than merely remember. In that match, the opposition's speed of ball circulation was so fast that many of our players only had time to glance before the ball had reached another foot. The gap in fitness and decision-making speed was exposed ruthlessly, and it also showed precisely what must improve. As for players, Huynh Nhu deserves mention first. Born in 2026, the striker from Tra Vinh is the all-time leading goalscorer for the Vietnam women's team. She played in Portugal for Lank FC Vilaverdense, becoming one of the first Vietnamese women to play in Europe. In her thirties, choosing to go abroad was not an easy decision: it came with trade-offs in income, cultural adaptation and language. Chuong Thi Kieu is a left-footed centre-back with strong reading of the game. She can play across the back line and is the kind of player every coach wants. Tran Thi Thuy Trang and Nguyen Thi Tuyet Dung are midfielders capable of creating something from nothing, with Tuyet Dung notable for her set pieces and switches of play. Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy and Duong Thi Van add width and penetration on the flanks. In goal, Tran Thi Kim Thanh has left her mark with crucial saves at major tournaments. What these names share is that almost all came from hardship. Very few grew up with structured investment from childhood. Most had to fend for themselves, and many came to football as an escape rather than a pre-planned career path. That is why, when speaking of their contribution, I choose to emphasise endurance over innate talent. One detail rarely discussed is the generational handover. In recent years the team has faced a familiar problem: a golden generation is edging past its peak while the next cohort is not fully ready. In women's teams, development cycles are typically longer and the talent pool much narrower than in the men's game. So whenever a talented generation closes, the gap it leaves often takes years to fill. Look at the numbers and the scale gap between men's and women's football in Vietnam is common knowledge, but the degree of that gap is what matters. A men's V.League club may run a budget in the tens of billions of dong per season, while many women's teams operate on a fraction of that, with several relying on sponsorship from state-owned enterprises or local authorities. As a result, women's players' incomes, though improved from before, remain far from a sustainable living. The women's national championship, despite its professional billing, still operates as semi-professional in many respects. Players sometimes take second jobs to make ends meet, and the dilemma of balancing training with earning a living is not rare. This is a point I believe is rarely discussed seriously, because it does not generate appealing headlines. Academies and youth development mirror the same imbalance. Youth football centres tend to concentrate resources on boys, and girls' grassroots programmes remain sparse, mostly clustered in a few major cities. This narrows the selection pool for the national team, even as the enthusiasm of the girls who do take part remains high. So where does the true value of Vietnamese women's football lie? The answer many want to hear is commercial potential — waiting sponsors, untapped growth. But speaking only of commercial potential risks a familiar trap: treating women's football as a product awaiting valuation rather than a sporting entity needing protection. This is where I respectfully disagree with the prevailing view. For years, the story of Vietnamese women's football has been told in two forms: either a moving tale of overcoming hardship, or an upbeat tale of potential. Both are partly right, and both dodge the core question: are we actually paying a fair price for the sporting value these players create? Women's football does not need pity, nor does it need rose-tinting. It needs fair treatment. When a women's player wins a SEA Games gold, the value of that medal should not be measured by untapped commercial potential but by the effort that produced it. Elite sport is not an investment project awaiting returns; it is part of a culture, and culture must be nourished before profit is discussed. There is a paradox I have witnessed many times. After every SEA Games, when the women's team wins gold, the media is flooded with praise. But when the domestic women's championship kicks off, few follow it, and many matches are played in silence. Interest in Vietnamese women's football seems to flare with major tournament cycles and then fade. A football culture can only grow sustainably when attention is sustained, not delivered in short waves. The dressing-room voice is something I always believe should be heard more. In conversations with women's players, what troubles me is not that they face difficulty, but that they have grown so used to it that they treat it as normal. When a player tells you she had to sell her medal to cover a relative's hospital bills, that is not merely a pitiable personal story. It is a signal about the system. One small detail stays with me. During a recording, a young player asked me whether she would play in the domestic league next year, because the schedule had not been announced. A professional player unsure where she will compete in the coming months is almost unthinkable in men's football. In Vietnamese women's football, it is routine. What I want to stress is that scheduling uncertainty is not a minor inconvenience. It directly affects training planning, periodised physical development and player income. An unstable competition system will never produce a stable football culture, no matter how brightly the national team shines in a few short tournaments. Another question concerns the media. For years I tried a different approach: placing women's football records directly into the information stream of men's football. I learned that general audiences rarely seek out a separate women's sports section, but they will accept that information if it appears naturally in the bulletins they already follow. That is why I believe the effective strategy is not to isolate women's football as an island, but to weave it into the mainstream naturally and without fanfare. Once, when I slipped a line about a big Vietnam women's win into a men's football bulletin, I drew no small amount of backlash. But a quick poll afterwards showed most viewers wanted to hear more about women's football. It reinforced my belief: the problem is not that audiences do not care, but that they have never been given the chance to. Look at the region and competition is intensifying. While Vietnamese women's football built its foundation on SEA Games results, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar are also investing more heavily. The Philippines have made significant strides in recent years, with many players abroad and a more structured development strategy. Thailand remain a traditional power with a stable professional base. This means Vietnam's position in Southeast Asia will no longer be easy. So where is the differentiator that could create an edge? I believe it is stability of playing style. While many regional teams change approach with each coaching change, Vietnam have maintained a relatively consistent philosophy for years. That consistency is an asset, but also a double-edged sword: it helps the team run smoothly, but if it is not updated against new trends in the world women's game, it can become stagnation. One clear trend in world women's football in recent years is the rise of high pressing and transition speed. Leading sides such as the United States, England, Spain and Germany play at high intensity and demand tough fitness. To keep pace, Vietnamese women's football needs more than good individual technique; it needs a physical foundation built from grassroots level, plus a data-analysis system to optimise tactics. Here I want to be blunt about something rarely mentioned: Vietnamese women's football lacks a deep data-analysis system proportionate to its potential. Metrics such as xG, PPDA and successful duels are rarely used systematically in the domestic league. This means player evaluation and tactical design rely mainly on subjective observation, however refined that observation may be. Bringing data in will not replace a coach's eye, but it adds a dimension modern football cannot ignore. For someone in my line of work, the lack of standardised data is also a major obstacle. Without reliable figures to cite, a writer easily slips into narrating matches by feeling. That is something I always try to avoid, because I believe every claim should be anchored by at least two independent sources rather than the writer's hunch. Now to solutions. If asked where to start, I would say with the stability of the schedule. A league with a stable calendar, announced early and respected, lets clubs plan, lets players feel secure, and gives sponsors a basis to invest. Everything else, from technical quality to media appeal, flows from that stability. Second, expand girls' youth development. The selection pool is currently too narrow, capping the national team's ceiling. Introducing women's football into schools seriously, with pitches and trained coaches, would create a wider base from which to select. Third, a long-term media strategy rather than one tied to tournament cycles. Women's football cannot appear only when there is a SEA Games or a World Cup. It must be present regularly, including in periods without major tournaments, because those periods are precisely when foundations are built. Fourth, improve income and social protection for women's players. A player should never have to sell her medal to make ends meet. That is the minimum, not a luxury. And the future? I am optimistic, but with verified optimism. Optimistic because the younger cohort is increasingly confident, because girls in more provinces are beginning to get more structured chances to play, and because the public, however slowly, is starting to recognise that women's football deserves to be watched. But cautious too, because those positive signs only last if they come with structural change. One thing I have learned after years in this trade: women's football does not need a miracle. It needs the right decisions made persistently. The SEA Games golds are the fruit of such persistence, and so is the World Cup ticket. So the question is not whether Vietnamese women's football can achieve something great — it has already proven it can. The better question is: are we willing to build a sustainable foundation so those achievements are no longer isolated peaks? When the old wave recedes, I step onto a new platform, and the voice is still my own. Over the years I have learned not to chase short waves of excitement but to anchor myself in durable values. Vietnamese women's football is the same. It will not grow through one big tournament or one resounding win, but through thousands of silent training sessions, hundreds of matches played before almost no crowd, and players who keep pursuing a path society has not yet treated with the fairness it deserves. There is a moment I always remember. After a match, a young women's player told me she did not dream of fame; she only hoped to keep playing football. She said it calmly, as if it were obvious. To me, that was both the most beautiful confession and the bluntest reminder of the responsibility of those who never step onto the pitch. I have no illusion that an article can change something grande. But if it makes one reader spend a few more minutes watching a women's match, or makes one parent think differently when their daughter wants to play football, then perhaps it was worth writing. Because in the end, change does not come from the World Cup lights that switch on and off. It comes from how many people stay after those lights go out.