Vietnamese Football Through the Lens of the 2026 World Cup: If You Can't Move Forward, at Least Don't Go Backward

South Korea just did something that makes Asians proud: Defeated a European team at the World Cup. A comeback win is not unusual in the World Cup. But the way South Korea won—calm, not panicking when trailing on foreign soil, and having substitute options of sufficient quality to change the course of the match—is what truly stands out.

It is the result of perseverance, something that Vietnamese football seems to 'remember at times, forget at others' after a decade of glory.

Let's go back about 6-7 years ago

In Changzhou in 2018, the Vietnam U23 team and the Uzbekistan U23 team both reached the final of the AFC U23 Championship, a milestone seen as a historic turning point for both football nations. Some of the Uzbekistan U23 players from that time are now playing in the 2026 World Cup. A year later, at the 2019 Asian Cup, we defeated Jordan 1-0. At that time, Vietnam's FIFA ranking was 99, roughly on par with Jordan (97) and Uzbekistan (88). By the end of 2020, the gap had narrowed further: Vietnam 93, Jordan 95, Uzbekistan 85.

It's not just the somewhat relative FIFA rankings, but even in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, both Uzbekistan and Jordan failed to reach the final round. In other words, at the time when Vietnam had its best generation of players, we were at the same level as those two Asian rivals. Or perhaps we were at the same starting line.

Now, both Jordan and Uzbekistan have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in their history. Currently, Jordan is ranked 65th, Uzbekistan 50th on the FIFA rankings. Vietnam, however, has dropped far out of the top 100, taking nearly three years to return, but still remains outside the elite competition, at a distance that can no longer be measured by a few ranking positions.

Of course, the FIFA rankings are only relative. But the movement of the three teams that once shared the same starting line, heading in three completely different directions over the same period of time, is not relative.

That is a measure of the sustainability of a football nation. Take Jordan as a specific example: over the years, they haven't been particularly outstanding in continental youth tournaments or the Asian Cup, unlike Uzbekistan. The point is that they did not allow their journey to regress.

Therefore, let's not compare the nature of Jordan and Uzbekistan's World Cup participation. Let's not raise comparisons to feel inferior or to assign blame, because each football nation has its own path. Perhaps they have advantages in physique and body shape compared to Vietnam, or they had lucky draws in the qualifiers. But there is one thing about them that we should take as the core foundation for developing our national team: stability and the ability to improve oneself.

More accurately, it is a lesson

No one denies that the 2018-2022 period of Vietnamese football was real. It was a talented generation, a smooth-running machine under coach Park Hang Seo. But the price paid for the lack of preparation during the transition period, often called the 'post-Park Hang Seo' era, is a fluctuating graph: sometimes rising to 92nd, sometimes dropping to 116th, then hovering around the 100 mark.

This is the biggest bottleneck for Vietnamese football: it is good at creating peaks, but not good at maintaining a steady upward curve.

Vietnam, from another perspective, has been lingering too long on victories at the SEA Games, AFF Cup, or regional U23 tournaments. Those titles have real value; they are the foundation and necessary confidence. But when they become the goal instead of a stepping stone, they themselves become a trap.

No one demands that Vietnamese football must appear at the World Cup tomorrow. The gap is real, and narrowing it takes time, just as Jordan and Uzbekistan needed a whole decade.

But what can be controlled, and must be controlled immediately, is not to let every generational transition, every coaching change, become a free fall in standards. Sustainability does not lie in a perfect strategy; it lies in not making decisions that destroy the foundations already built.