Pleiku, the midfield, and the surplus foreigners: V-League on October 23, 2026

Pleiku Stadium at 5 PM is not just about sunshine. There are drums, thousands of red shirts from Nghe An who crossed the passes, and an empty seat in the away section. That gap belonged to someone who could not come. I wrote it in my notebook because I believe football always begins with empty spaces, not with goals. On the evening of October 23, 2026, the two most anticipated V-League matches will take place: HAGL vs SLNA on the Pleiku plateau, and The Cong Viettel vs Bac Ninh at Hang Day. Both matches are broadcast live on FPT Play, the rights holder for this V-League season. Both also have predicted lineups published before kickoff. But a predicted lineup is just a piece of paper, and football never lives on paper. It lives in the empty spaces on the pitch, the anonymous runs, the fateful slips. They call me a dreamer, but the ball has never hidden anything from me. On that paper, HAGL lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with four foreign names appearing at once: defender Basilio da Silva Julio Cesar, attacking midfielder Luann Augusto, winger Robson Alves Reis, and striker Jacintho Ferreira Matheus Lucas. SLNA, meanwhile, used a 4-3-3 with Jairo Rodrigues Filho at centre-back, Luiz Guilherme in midfield, and Bruno Pereira de Albuquerque up front. Three foreigners spread across three lines. I have lived with football for 69 years, and I still believe a beautiful pass is a declaration of love. But in this match, the declaration will be written by the midfield. The midfield equation becomes sharp. HAGL have only two central midfielders, Nguyen Thanh Nhan and Hoang Vinh Nguyen, while SLNA have three in the centre. The majority will control the ball, and once the visitors take the midfield, they will push HAGL into defence. Luann Augusto will be forced to drop deep, isolating striker Jacintho. If Jacintho is marked out of the game, HAGL will have almost no other attacking plan. This is one-sided dependence: buying goals from foreigners, then becoming helpless when those foreigners disappear. The predicted lineups of the two most traditional clubs in Vietnam expose an uncomfortable truth. Both HAGL and SLNA own academies that produced golden generations of Vietnamese football. Yet in the starting eleven, they still give decisive positions to foreigners. They buy goals from Brazil and nurture defenders from their own academies. That is the cost-optimising model of mid-tier clubs, but it is also an admission that Vietnamese football is still buying survival from abroad, season after season, contract after contract. I remember HAGL's early V-League seasons. In 2026, when both teams were still in the First Division, Pleiku Stadium was packed as never before. Fans from Nghe An crossed mountain passes just to watch their home team. Nowhere else in Vietnam had such a fiery derby atmosphere. SLNA is not just a club; it is a symbol of Nghe An resilience. HAGL is the dream of the Central Highlands people, a dream planted among rubber forests. When these two worlds collide, football becomes a story of destinies. In such matches, the paper gap in class is often erased by emotion. This derby may defy every tactical analysis. Meanwhile, the match at Hang Day belongs to another world. The Cong Viettel is an army club with solid financial backing, stable wages, and the patience of soldiers. They are allowed to lose. Bac Ninh are not. For a newly promoted team, every match is a final, every defeat brings relegation closer. Predictions say Bac Ninh will defend deep, surrender possession, and wait for a mistake. But a team that defends for ninety minutes usually cannot survive. They need at least one moment of their own, one move they will tell their grandchildren about. Public pressure is unevenly distributed. HAGL and SLNA have the most passionate fan bases in the country; losing a derby often triggers a purge on the bench. Their coaches can be sacked after one sleepless night. Bac Ninh, as a newcomer, has the highest risk of changing coaches because their only goal is survival. But football is not arithmetic. My notebook still holds a few drops of Moscow tears, the tears of Modric, of shepherds who ran 12 km every match. Tonight, in Pleiku or Hang Day, someone will cry. And I will record that tear, because it is the most valuable thing. What is more telling is how we approach the match. The VietnamNet article provides no statistics: no xG, no possession rate, no form, no league position. It only offers two live-stream links on FPT Play and two predicted lineups. That reveals a reality: broadcasting rights have moved to a paid OTT model, and the press now serves as a guide to the link, not a storyteller. Journalists no longer sell analysis; they sell tickets. The newspaper becomes a giant billboard, and the reader becomes a potential customer of the broadcaster. The truth of the match is reserved for those who pay. We are willing to pay to watch Brazilian foreigners run on Vietnamese pitches, but no data tells us how many kilometres local players ran, how many misplaced passes they made, how many duels they won. We buy tickets to see goals, but no one pays to watch intelligent runs. This football culture is feeding a dependence on imported talent and forgetting that academies like HAGL, SLNA, and Viettel are the most precious assets we have. Now look again at HAGL's predicted lineup: four foreigners in one match. I know V-League regulations usually limit the number of foreigners on the pitch at the same time. Maybe one of them has Vietnamese citizenship, or maybe this list is a figment of the writer's imagination. But the very appearance of four foreign names in a predicted lineup says something deeper: people are willing to stuff every foreign resource into a domestic framework, regardless of regulatory boundaries. It is like small clubs lending their pillars with a mandatory purchase clause, forever raising semi-finished goods for the big teams. The V-League transfer market is not in blockbuster deals; it is in the fine print of loan contracts. This season's V-League transfer market remains quiet, except for loan deals with obligatory purchase clauses. Small clubs are forced to sell their rough gems before they can shine. They have no choice. Tight budgets, results pressure, and an unprotected youth system. When giants like CAHN or Nam Dinh call, no young player refuses. That is the law of the market, but it slowly exhausts academies like HAGL and SLNA. They plant trees, and others pick the fruit. In a big match like this, people usually remember a beautiful goal or a stunning save. I remember the slips. In 2026, live on air, I spent twelve minutes talking about the dance of misplaced passes. A foreign striker's shot hitting the post was the rest note of a symphony. Tonight, someone will slip in the penalty area, and that moment will be the soul of the match. A defender falling tells more than a goal. It tells of pressure, fatigue, and sleepless nights before the derby. Bac Ninh have a quiet backroom crew: the stadium cleaners, the vendors outside the gate. When the team was promoted, they were as proud as if they had been promoted themselves. These are the unnamed people I often write about. They are the soul of Vietnamese football because they do not need the spotlight; they only need their team to exist. Even if Bac Ninh are relegated, they will still come, still clean, still sing. For them, football is not victory but faith. In the SLNA squad, there is a special name: Abdel-Amine Tran Duc Vinh, a player of Vietnamese-French heritage. His presence is a symbol of a new generation — those born abroad but choosing to contribute to their parents' homeland. He may not be a star, but he is a bridge between two football cultures. In a way, he is also a dreamer, seeking a declaration of love through passes. They say I am a dreamer when I sit in an empty stadium on non-match days. I listen to the breath of the ball. The ball cannot lie. If a team is weak, the ball rolls slowly. If a team is strong, the ball rolls fast. On the pitch, all falsehood is exposed. Tonight, the ball will tell the story of a football nation buying joy with the sweat of strangers, of young players on the bench, of fans without tickets standing outside to hear the whistle. When the radio goes on air in the middle of the night, the pitch sleeps, and football knows how to wait. And I, an old man of 69, am still waiting for new tears to write down. If October 23, 2026, is indeed the eighth round of the season, then V-League is in an early stage, where nothing is decided but everything can happen. A defeat in this round will not kill anyone's season, but it plants seeds of doubt. For HAGL, a home loss to their eternal rivals will trigger an unnecessary wave of criticism. For Bac Ninh, a heavy defeat will reinforce the belief that they do not belong in this arena. But football always has surprises. Fans come to the stadium not to watch numbers, but to watch stories written before their eyes. Yet I still hope. Because in HAGL's predicted lineup, I see Vietnamese names: Tran Trung Kien, Ha Chau Phi, Nguyen Quoc Quang Huy, Tran Thanh Son, Tran Gia Bao. They are young; they will have to run more, fight more to keep a place. One day, they will be the ones telling their own stories. Bac Ninh may be relegated, but they will carry the lessons of a demanding season. The Cong Viettel may win, but their greatest victory lies in continuing to believe in the young players from their own academy. Tonight, when the opening whistle sounds, I will not look at the scoreboard. I will look at the empty spaces, the slips, the tears. Because the score cannot capture the heart, and football writes poetry in those places. After 69 years with the ball, I still believe a beautiful pass is a declaration of love. And tonight, someone will receive that declaration in the stands at Pleiku or Hang Day, even if no one scores.