Four V-League Clubs Fall in the 2026-2027 National Cup Qualifiers: When Survival Matters More Than a Trophy

I watched Thanh Hóa against Becamex TP.HCM long after the city had gone quiet, on a flickering stream, with the commentary cutting in and out and the picture stuttering like old film left too long in storage. In the sixth minute of the second half, the ball was in the home net for the second time. There was no roar from the stands. Only a few people stood up, and the plastic seats snapped back with the dry sound of bamboo sticks knocking together. The scoreboard read 0-2, and what lingered longer than the score was the silence that stretched another ten minutes, until the referee blew for full time. That was one of four occasions on which V-League clubs fell to first-division opponents across two weekend days in the 2026-2027 National Cup qualifiers. Eight matches, four defeats for the sides regarded as favourites. Three of those defeats came at home. Only Bắc Ninh preserved what was left of the V-League's dignity, winning 3-2 away at first-division Long An. I have sat through enough press conferences to know that a result like this is usually explained with two words: a lack of commitment. That explanation is right about the feeling and wrong about the structure. For most V-League clubs, the National Cup is not a primary competition. The deeper you go, the more you spend on travel and accommodation, the more you have to rotate, while the survival objective — the thing that decides whether a club exists at all — still hangs overhead. A coach can speak beautifully about honour into a microphone, then name four substitutes the next evening. When they shut the press conference door, I found another door — the door of poetry. There, people do not talk about tactics; they talk about what they gave up. Looking at the weekend's fixtures, the preparation of the two groups was visibly uneven. The first-division clubs entered the qualifiers fresh at the start of their season, with one very specific goal: promotion. For them, this match was the most important of the month. For most V-League representatives, it was a stopover between two more important rounds. Becamex TP.HCM are the clearest example. The club was relegated to the first division and is now a candidate to go straight back up. Their squad is in no way inferior to the hosts', and their spirit was far superior. At Thanh Hóa they won 2-0 without much difficulty: controlling the ball, squeezing the midfield, and exploiting exactly the two moments when the opposing defence lost concentration. Hoàng Anh Gia Lai are a different story with the same ending. The Pleiku pitch is being re-laid because it drains badly whenever heavy rain persists, so the mountain club has borrowed Quy Nhơn as a temporary home. No drums, no familiar stands, no sense of being protected. Against a Hưng Yên side full of hunger, Lê Quang Trãi's men were 1-3 down by the 77th minute, pulled one back from the penalty spot in the 90+4th, and closed the match at 2-3. In Hải Phòng, the match was settled by a single touch. Thép Cần Thơ, a club that has just moved its "registered address" from Quảng Ninh to the Mekong Delta city and had just lost its first-division opener, won 0-1. The only goal belonged to Thaileon, a striker who joined the club just days earlier and scored inside the first half. Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh took the longest road: 0-0 after 90 minutes at Phú Thọ, then a 2-3 defeat on penalties. For a side whose V-League start has been far from disastrous, an early exit from the National Cup is no tragedy. But it reveals something else: when neither side has much motivation left, the match drifts towards luck rather than ability. Then there is Bắc Ninh, the only V-League side to win. They won 3-2 at Long An, and the manner of that win deserves more attention than the result. A team willing to trade blows with the hosts and score three goals away from home was the only favourite that walked out with a clear intention: to win. But if one club made me stop and look longer than any other, it was Thanh Hóa. Before facing Becamex TP.HCM, the club from Thanh Hóa province had been living in what I would call provisional existence. They only learned they still had a place in the 2026-2027 V-League shortly before the season began. The squad is thin because there is not enough money either to keep key players or to sign new ones. Then, in mid-September, a document arrived from FIFA: the club must pay more than 305,000 USD, roughly 8 billion Vietnamese dong, to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a claim. If the matter is not resolved within 45 days of receiving the document on 16 September, the club will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows. For a squad already struggling for depth, that sanction is like freezing an entire season. The awkward part is that the case arose during the tenure of the previous sponsor, while the club has now been handed over to a new one. On paper, it is a dispute between legal entities. In reality, it is a story about people: a striker waiting for his wages, a new leadership taking on a debt it did not create, and a group of players who do not know whether they will be reinforced at all. A scoreline is a lifeless thing. Behind every goal is a human life still breathing. Thanh Hóa's two goals conceded at home can be recorded in a match report in two dry lines, but behind them lies an afternoon in which the hosts walked out with heads heavier than their legs. Based on my own experience of watching these matches, I noticed a common pattern in the three home defeats: the V-League sides lost their rhythm in the first twenty minutes of the second half. That is the window when fitness and concentration dip at the same time, while the first-division opponent still has all of its motivation intact. In a knockout match, motivation is the strongest variable, stronger than quality on paper. For Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, the picture is heavier still. The mountain club has lost two straight matches to open the 2026-2027 V-League, the squad is weaker than last season, and the relegation battle has already appeared in the first rounds. Having to play temporarily in Quy Nhơn because the Pleiku pitch drains poorly only makes everything harder: a club that lives on local identity is currently living on someone else's ground. But an early exit from the National Cup may actually be good for them. With one competition fewer, Lê Quang Trãi's players gain extra days to recover, to wait for the Pleiku pitch to be fixed, and to reorganise their defence before the season drags them to the bottom. An empire does not collapse when it loses a match; it collapses when no one is left to witness the tears. In Quy Nhơn last weekend there were no tears, only a team quietly walking into the dressing room with a different plan in mind. Here I want to push back against the most common reading of last weekend. The media called those four defeats an earthquake, a sign of a V-League in decline. I do not see it that way. What happened in the National Cup qualifiers is the logical outcome of a system in which every club has to choose where it wants to survive. A club without ambition does not treat the National Cup as a primary competition. The deeper you go, the more it costs, and the more you have to worry about your squad, so such clubs approach the tournament rather indifferently. That indifference paves the way for first-division sides to show greater determination and spring surprises. But the blind spot lies on the other side. Fans are busy praising the first-division clubs while forgetting that beating an opponent who does not really want to win proves little about quality. Becamex TP.HCM won because they needed to win. Hưng Yên won because they were hungry. Thép Cần Thơ won because a newly arrived striker needed to prove himself. And the V-League sides lost because stopping early suits them better. What is truly worrying is not that V-League clubs lose to first-division opponents. What is worrying is that a national competition is treated by its own members as an unnecessary expense. If the winners dare not celebrate a trophy fully, where exactly is its value? I live in Germany, where the national cup is a festival. Lower-division clubs sell out, and big clubs still field strong line-ups because that cup is a road to European competition. The difference is not in the name of the tournament but in whether people have a reason to want to win. In Vietnam, that reason is missing. The National Cup is not tied to an Asian competition berth, not tied to a prize big enough, not tied to prestige heavy enough to make a club fighting relegation take a risk. When the reward does not match the risk, a club choosing safety is making a rational decision, not a cowardly one. In fairness, the first-division clubs do not need anyone's pity. Becamex TP.HCM are building a squad capable of returning to the V-League. Hưng Yên play a bold, ambitious brand of football. Thép Cần Thơ brought in a striker who scored the decisive goal just days after signing. Phú Thọ kept a clean sheet for 90 minutes against Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh and then won on penalties. What I want to see is how the V-League clubs respond. For Thanh Hóa, the problem is not elimination itself but elimination at a time when their financial future is unclear. For Hải Phòng and Hồng Lĩnh Hà Tĩnh, whose V-League starts have not been bad at all, an early exit is no surprise when survival is the only remaining objective. For Hoàng Anh Gia Lai, it is almost a liberation. The season is long, and the National Cup will keep producing early farewells that are conveniently labelled shocks. But look long enough and a simple truth appears: Vietnamese football is running two parallel systems, one that lives on trophies and one that lives on mere existence. Every shot is an unfinished poem; every save is an ellipsis that fate deliberately leaves open. As long as both systems exist, the shocks in the National Cup qualifiers will keep repeating. Will anyone be brave enough to restructure it, or will we keep counting how many giants fall next year?