European expert is right: V-League lacks football culture, not talent – and the proof is in the youth system

An unnamed European expert just told Dan Tri that the V-League needs to build football culture from the youth level. I laughed when I read that. Not because he is wrong – but because he just said a truth that anyone who has followed Vietnamese football for more than a decade already knows, yet nobody is brave enough to say out loud. We have Dang Van Hau banned for four matches for a reckless challenge. We have Tan Sinh and Van Son taking turns trying to destroy Dinh Bac. We have a league turning into a place where the aggressor wins and the talented leave on crutches. That expert said nothing new. But he pointed exactly at the root that Vietnamese football has avoided for two decades. Look at what happened early this season. Dang Van Hau – once the symbol of Vietnamese football at the SEA Games – received a four-match ban after a dangerous challenge on Doan Ngoc Tan. Anyone who watches the replay can see the intent. But one incident can be called an accident. Two or three in a short window cannot. Tan Sinh and Van Son deliberately fouled Dinh Bac – same target, same type of foul, same message: we will teach you a lesson. No footballing reason can justify that. Insiders told Dan Tri that rain and poor pitches are the cause. I have lived in Japan for over twenty years, where matches are played in storms and on snowy fields, yet I have never seen a player turn into a killer because the surface was slippery. Rain does not make people cheat. Rain only exposes what has been taught. The European expert calls it culture – and he is right. But I want to go further: what we are seeing is the result of a training system that lacks education, lacks qualified people who can teach children what a legal tackle really is. The problem is not the names being punished. It is a generation of coaches teaching children wrong from the very first lesson. Modern football is suffocating because of those who fear losing so much they forget how to win – and the V-League proves it painfully. Let me tell you something I have watched for twenty years in Japan. At J-League academies, a ten-year-old is taught sliding technique for at least six months before being allowed to attempt a real tackle. Japanese coaches do not just teach kids how to win the ball – they teach them how to protect the opponent while winning it. That is the difference between a tough challenge and an assault. Where do most Vietnamese youngsters learn to slide? From coaches the European expert describes as relying mainly on playing or street football experience – people who may play well but were never trained to become educators. A good player does not automatically become a good coach. It is a completely different skill, and the AFC coaching license system was designed to address exactly this. But the V-League, as the expert noted, is ignoring all of it. If you ask me whether those youth coaches love the children they teach, I believe they do. But love does not automatically become method. I have seen Vietnamese fathers teach their sons to play by shouting and demanding victory at all costs. It all comes from love. But the result is a child who grows up playing in fear, with feet that never learned to hold back. That is the price we pay every week on V-League pitches. Let me give you three numbers to prove this is not about individuals. First: Hau's four-match ban – the heaviest of the season – but under AFC or FIFA standards, a deliberate challenge like that can bring six to eight matches. Second: Tan Sinh and Van Son received cards but no supplementary punishment was announced. Third: the number of coaches with an AFC B license or higher working in Vietnamese youth academies – if we are honest, still far below regional standards. I declared war on defensive football in 2026, and no one has been brave enough to accept the challenge. I will declare war again: Vietnam's youth coaching foundation is a lowland, and on-field violence is just the visible symptom of an illness that both VFF and VPF are responsible for. The European expert is right on one point: young players always look up to their seniors. If at the very top a star like Hau can go in like a madman and be defended by the crowd as aggressive, what happens at youth level? They learn that brutality is the fastest way to be recognized. That is the downward role-model cascade – and I believe he is right down to the last comma. But he missed half the story. The other half is incentive. Performance pressure is a stronger force than any education program. When a young coach knows his replacement is waiting after one losing streak, he teaches his players to win at any cost. When a backup player knows this is his last chance, he will do anything to keep his place. The expert is right to call for cultural education. But he did not answer why the system keeps producing such people. Now let me question myself. Where could I be wrong? First, I may be too harsh comparing Vietnam's coaching structure to Japan – a country with over a century of football development and physical education. Vietnam started with street football in the 1990s, and expecting a full coaching system in thirty years may be unrealistic. Perhaps what the expert calls lack of culture is simply the result of a young football nation. Every young football nation goes through this painful phase. Second, I may be underestimating rain and poor pitches. Combined with inexperienced referees, such conditions can make even well-intentioned players misjudge tackles. I have never played professional football in the rain on Vietnamese stadium pitches. So I have no right to judge the fear when water pours down and every challenge could end in injury. Third – and this hurts the most – the expert may be saying something true in a way that is too safe. “Build culture from youth” is a very nice answer. But it is also the perfect way for football leaders to delay their immediate responsibility: instead of punishing severely and consistently now, they can say we must wait for the next generation. And while we wait, who will protect the next Dinh Bac? The lesson from 2026: never justify failure when the audience needs a punch straight in the face. Today, the audience needs a punch straight into the disciplinary system. So what do I bet? I bet that within 24 months, if the VFF does not publish a roadmap requiring coaching licenses for the youth system, the V-League will record at least five more serious disciplinary cases like Hau's – not because Vietnamese players are bad, I never believe that, but because the system is teaching them how to survive in an environment where brutality is rewarded by crowds and forgiven by trophies. And I end with a real question, not a rhetorical one: when will we – and I say we because I remain Vietnamese even from Osaka – be brave enough to say that Vietnamese football's problem is not in the feet but in the mind, not in the players but in the people behind them, who have been teaching them wrong from the very first lesson?