Cong An Ha Noi Before Their Opener: When Winning Must Come With Keeping the Squad

Adou Minh, Cao Pendant Quang Vinh, Le Pham Thanh Long, Le Van Do, Nguyen Dinh Bac. Those five names have just returned to Cong An Ha Noi after the FIFA Days break, carrying experience from the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026 — and the traces of a schedule that gives no one room to breathe.

At 18:30 on October 8, Vietnam time, coach Alexandre Polking's side opens Group B of the ASEAN Club Championship 2026-2027 in Singapore against Lion City Sailors. What catches my attention is not what the score might be, but who will stand on the pitch, and who will be allowed to sit it out.

Bui Hoang Viet Anh did not travel with the team. He returned home to recover from injury. Another name leaves the picture because of health — in a season where injury is the most forgotten story. The return of this group of national players restores Cong An Ha Noi's original strength. But the real question is whether they will be given the chance to play, and if so, for how long. Player health has been a much-discussed issue lately, after Vietnam's failure at the FIFA-level tournament, where losing players to injury was one cause.

This is the opening match of Group B of the ASEAN Club Championship 2026-2027. Lion City Sailors are not too strong an opponent. The Singaporean representative is on a poor run, sitting only fifth in the national league. In their most recent meeting, on September 26, 2026, they lost 5-0 to Cong An Ha Noi in the ASEAN Club Championship itself. That margin, plus the current form of both teams, shows a very large gap in class.

As for Cong An Ha Noi, before entering the FIFA Days break, they won all four matches in the V-League and the National Super Cup, losing only once to a superior opponent, Gamba Osaka, in the AFC Champions League Elite. Looking at the squad in Polking's hands, it is not an exaggeration to say that missing five national players does not weaken the team much. The defence has Doan Van Hau. The midfield has the return of Nguyen Quang Hai, recently recovered from injury. Up front, Alan Grafite and Leo Artur are always ready to fire.

That is a squad deep enough to rotate. But that is exactly why the problem becomes harder, not easier.

At the tournament in Indonesia, most Cong An Ha Noi players played all four matches in full. Adou Minh, Quang Vinh, Thanh Long and Dinh Bac all featured for large minutes, but did not deliver their best performances by their own standards, due to the risk of overload. Dinh Bac at one point had to train separately, playing through pain against Malaysia.

This is the key point: Cong An Ha Noi's problem in this match is not whether they win, but who they win with, and the price paid afterwards.

I have followed football for more than forty years, long enough to know that some matches are decided before the ball rolls — not by tactics, but by the remaining physical capacity of human beings. When I look at the list of five returning national players, I see a countdown clock, not an attack waiting to fire.

After FIFA Days, Cong An Ha Noi enters a dense run across four competitions: the V-League, the National Super Cup, the AFC Champions League Elite and the ASEAN Club Championship. Four fronts, one squad. In that context, the match against Lion City Sailors is a rare chance for Polking to rotate without sacrificing the result. The option of benching the national players is entirely conceivable. But if the reserve lineup wins easily, where does the real value of this tournament lie?

I have sat and listened to many women's national players describe a similar feeling. They talked about matches where their legs no longer obeyed their heads, about playing through pain to make it onto the pitch because no one could replace them. Men's and women's football differ in speed and physicality, but the story of a person being wrung dry is exactly the same. What I learned after so many years holding the mic: when a player has to train separately to play through pain, it is no longer their personal story, but a signal of an entire system running overloaded.

On a day of men's football celebration, I quietly slip women's records into every bulletin. This time, what I want to slip in is a rarely spoken truth: in women's football, Vietnamese national players have also entered major tournaments in similar conditions, and the price is usually only mentioned after it is too late. Men's football now has the chance to learn the lesson in advance.

Here I want to say plainly something few want to hear. A win against an underrated opponent proves nothing about Cong An Ha Noi's class — it only proves they did not make things hard for themselves.

People are looking at the 5-0 result from 2026 and Lion City Sailors' fifth place to paint an easy match. But football does not operate by old league tables. It operates by the state of the legs in the 70th minute. A team coming off four straight wins and an intense FIFA Days period is not stronger than a team hungry for points just because it has a better head-to-head history.

The worry is not Lion City Sailors. It is the road behind. If Polking throws five national players onto the pitch just to win handsomely, he trades an easy win for the risk of losing men in the hard matches. I have seen this script too many times, in both men's and women's football: they win the small match, then lose a pillar in the big one, and call it bad luck.

When the old wave recedes, I step onto the new platform — the voice is still my own. And that voice says: sometimes keeping your people matters more than scoring.

Before the match, coach Polking shared: "We always want to maintain our position in the domestic arena, continuing to successfully defend the V-League title. But the matches in the international arena will also be challenges to elevate the club." Defender Doan Van Hau said: "We have the goal of achieving the highest result. Starting with the match against Lion City, we really want to win."

Three points against Lion City Sailors are not too hard. But the way those three points are won is what shapes the whole season. After more than thirty years holding the mic, I have learned this: sport is not only the score. It is the question of what you keep after the match ends.

At 56, I still ask one question: when a team is strong enough to win without everyone, are they wise enough to win while still keeping their people for the long days ahead?