Four V-League Clubs Fall in the 2026-2027 National Cup: Whistles, Budgets and the Calculations Behind the Touchline

In the 90th+4th minute at Quy Nhon stadium, the referee pointed to the penalty spot. Hoang Anh Gia Lai pulled one back to 2-3 against Hung Yen. The stands were nearly empty, because Pleiku stadium is being renovated after poor drainage in heavy rain, forcing the mountain-side club to borrow Binh Dinh as its temporary home. A last-minute penalty, a consolation goal, and a ticket out of the tournament at the qualifying round. That decision did not save Hoang Anh Gia Lai, but it captured nearly the whole story of last weekend's slate: V-League clubs falling one after another, and the whistles on the pitch merely a coat of paint over a deeper problem sitting in budgets, calendars, and the way clubs calculate the value of each competition.

I sat through replays of those four matches over two days. Not to find fault with colleagues holding the whistle, but to understand what makes a knockout tournament, where every team enters with the same chance, end with a near-simultaneous collapse of the supposedly stronger group.

Context: eight matches, four falls

The qualifying round of the 2026-2027 National Cup took place over two weekend days with eight matches. Four representatives currently playing in the V-League lost to first-division sides, and three of them lost at home. Bac Ninh was the only exception, winning 3-2 away at Long An.

Thanh Hoa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex TP.HCM, a club that had just been relegated to the first division and is now a promotion candidate. Becamex TP.HCM's squad was in no way inferior to the hosts and played with more determination, so the win came without much difficulty.

Following Thanh Hoa, Hoang Anh Gia Lai lost 2-3 to Hung Yen at Quy Nhon, considered the mountain-side club's temporary home. The script was clear: without the familiar support of home fans, and facing a Hung Yen full of ambition, Hoang Anh Gia Lai trailed 1-3 from the 77th minute before pulling back to 2-3 from the penalty spot in the 90th+4th minute.

At home, Hai Phong also lost 0-1 to Thep Can Tho, a club that had just relocated from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta city and had lost its opening match in the 2026-2027 First Division. Having joined the club just days earlier, striker Thaileon scored the only goal of the match in the first half.

The last name was Hong Linh Ha Tinh, who lost 2-3 on penalties to hosts Phu Tho after a 0-0 draw in regulation time.

For many V-League clubs, especially those without major ambition, the National Cup is not their main stage. The deeper they go, the more they spend on travel and accommodation, and the more they must worry about squad depth, while staying up in the V-League matters far more. That indifferent approach inadvertently opens the door for first-division teams, who enter the match with far greater determination.

Core: four falls, four different stories

Looking only at the scorelines, one might lump these four defeats into a single trend. But taken match by match, each fall has its own cause, and only one of them is truly about pure football on the pitch.

Thanh Hoa best illustrates the mismatch between ambition and resources. The Thanh team only knew it still existed right before the 2026-2027 V-League kicked off, with a limited squad because there was not enough funding to retain key players or sign new ones. Before facing Becamex TP.HCM, the club also faced a fresh money worry about sustaining the team: FIFA had just ordered payment of more than 305,000 USD, equivalent to about 8 billion dong, to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a complaint with FIFA.

If the matter is not resolved within 45 days from receiving the document dated September 16, Thanh Hoa will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows. The knot lies in the fact that the case dates back to the previous sponsor's tenure, while the club has now been transferred to a new sponsor. An old debt hanging over a club fighting relegation is the kind of pressure no tactical board can measure.

A penalty can change the fate of a match, a contract can change the fate of a club. This line holds both literally and figuratively for Thanh Hoa: on the pitch, the team lost because it no longer had enough strength; off it, an old contract signed under a previous sponsor now threatens the next three transfer windows.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai continued its difficult run after losing two straight matches at the start of the 2026-2027 V-League. This season's squad is even weaker than last season's, so against a more ambitious Hung Yen, coach Le Quang Trai's side fell quickly. Having to borrow Quy Nhon as home removed the usual advantage, and that advantage sometimes does not lie in the grass but in the noise behind the opponent's defensive line.

Yet viewed differently, an early cup exit may be good for Hoang Anh Gia Lai, allowing the team to focus on the V-League, where it almost always faces a relegation battle. A ticket out at the qualifying round is no disaster if it saves miles, saves squad energy, and keeps key players fit for the matches that truly matter.

The other two clubs, Hai Phong and Hong Linh Ha Tinh, had decent starts to the 2026-2027 V-League, with one loss and one win, but their cup defeats were not exactly surprises either. They are saving strength for the relegation race, while the cup is only a secondary front. Hai Phong let Thaileon score in the first half, a situation showing the home defense had not found the rhythm of a match it treated lightly. Hong Linh Ha Tinh made it all the way to penalties before falling, a tense scenario in which any team can lose on the third or fourth kick.

In that shootout, the whole stadium held its breath after each run-up. People watch the game with their hearts; I watch it with pre-drawn lines: the 5.5-meter line for the penalty area, the 11-meter line for the penalty spot, and an invisible line inside the mind of the whistle-holder, where it is decided whether an action has crossed the limit. When a match reaches a shootout, tactical calculations on the pitch almost vanish, leaving only technique, psychology, and the calmness of the person in charge.

Every argument in the stands and off the pitch has an answer lying in some camera angle. For National Cup matches, I always remind myself that camera angles do not always cover every dispute. A collision in the box in the national league can be reviewed by VAR from three angles; in a cup match with few fans, there are fewer angles, and that data gap forces the referee to rely more on positioning and judgment.

That is why I watch cup matches with a high rate of upsets not only as a football phenomenon. They are also a test of the referee's match management. A match in which the stronger team rotates its squad, the weaker team plays flat out, and the tempo shifts constantly will put the referee in a position of maintaining consistency in sanctioning. When one side tackles hard without being called, the other side senses injustice and adjusts its behavior negatively. Fairness in such matches is not in one loud whistle, but in the referee keeping the same standard from the first minute to the last.

Based on my experience following matches, cup games have a markedly higher rate of underdogs winning than the national league, and most of the difference comes from psychology rather than pure football. The first-division team enters with nothing to lose. The V-League team enters feeling the match is not really important. That psychological gap, plus the stronger side missing a few key players, is enough to erase the gap in quality.

Contrarian: sometimes an early exit is the right choice

There is a paradox few want to admit. For many V-League clubs, especially those without title ambition, an early exit from the National Cup may be the best economic outcome. The deeper they go, the more they spend on travel and accommodation, and the more they worry about the squad, while staying up in the V-League matters far more. A cup qualifying defeat saves a club a few flights, a few hotel nights, and more importantly, preserves the legs of players it cannot afford to lose.

This does not mean those clubs are giving up or disrespecting the competition. It is a management decision, and given the financial pressures of Vietnamese football, it has its own logic. The question is not why clubs play indifferently, but why a national tournament has become a front clubs want to leave early.

From that angle, the four falls of V-League clubs should be read as a signal about the competition's structure, not as an indictment of football quality. When a tournament's prize money does not cover travel costs until the deep rounds, when the schedule squeezes between life-and-death V-League fixtures, an early exit becomes a reasonable outcome rather than a shameful failure.

But this is also where I must remind myself of the limits of my viewpoint. I sit in London, watch recordings, analyze data, and sometimes forget that a club in Thanh Hoa or Gia Lai must balance every penny across a long season. There are internal crises the cameras do not capture, and no record documents them fully. A head referee is not someone who never errs; what matters is what he does next after erring. And for clubs, what matters after a cup fall is not blaming anyone, but stepping into the season with enough clarity not to collapse further.

Takeaway: where the line between two leagues is blurring

The gap between the V-League and the first division is much narrower than most perceive. Four of five V-League representatives falling in a single round is not mere chance; it signals that the depth of Vietnamese football is shifting in a way other competitions should learn from. When first-division teams play with more determination, recruit more smartly, and make better use of each match, they are no longer opponents to be easily overlooked.

For the federation and tournament organizers, the question ahead is how to make the National Cup a genuinely respected arena, not just a scheduling burden. For clubs, it is a reminder that a qualifying-round fall can be an excuse to recalibrate goals, but also a chance to discover bench players who need opportunity. And for whistle-holders like me, cup matches are where we test whether we can keep our consistency when the match no longer has enough spotlight.

There are matches I called wrong, but from them I learned what fairness is. Every match has its own value, whether the stadium is empty or full. What is worrying is not that a V-League club is eliminated by a first-division side, but that such an elimination does not make any of us rethink how we organize and respect the game.