The Traditional Winger and the Forgotten Revolution in the V.League

The Traditional Winger and the Forgotten Revolution in the V.League Minute 78 at Thien Truong Stadium, the sea breeze blew against the winds of Stand B. I sat there, notebook open, pencil in hand, recording every phase of play in the match between Thep Xanh Nam Dinh and Cong An Ha Noi. A winger for the home side received the ball near the left touchline. In front of him was the opposing right-back, a man who had already covered more than ten kilometers in the game. By the reflex drilled into him over many years, he should have cut inside, seeking the gap between centre-back and full-back, or laid the ball back to the second line. But this time, he went outside. He pushed the ball past his opponent's legs with a tidy movement, chased it, and whipped a cross with his left foot into the box. The ball travelled hard, curling toward the far post. A Nam Dinh striker surged in at the right moment, but a Cong An Ha Noi centre-back cleared it out for a throw-in. No goal. No highlight made the evening bulletin. But I wrote three words in my notebook: the true wing still lives. That is why I am writing this piece. Not to tell the story of a goal or a victory. But to talk about something that is slowly disappearing from Vietnamese football, and about why that disappearance is a mistake. When the whole league turns its back on the touchline Over the past five seasons, the V.League has undergone a silent tactical revolution. Teams have shifted from the traditional 4-4-2 to the 4-2-3-1, the 4-3-3, and more recently the 3-4-2-1. At the heart of this change is the role of the winger. In Europe, this process began more than a decade ago. Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery at Bayern Munich, Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid, Lionel Messi at Barcelona, all were inverted wingers. They started on the flank but drifted inside, turning the wide corridor into space for overlapping full-backs. When this wave reached Vietnam, youth academies began training players according to the new model. A left winger who is right-footed was deemed modern. A left winger who is left-footed was deemed old-fashioned. Coaches at academies such as HAGL, PVF and Viettel began demanding that young players practise shooting with their weaker foot more often. I followed this process back when I was still a journalism student in Shenzhen. I once believed it was an inevitable advance. But when I returned to Vietnam and sat in the stands of stadiums from Hang Day to Hoa Xuan, I realised something. The inverted winger in Europe operates in a system with high-quality second-line passing, elite playmakers, and full-backs who overlap constantly. In the V.League, those conditions are not always present. Data does not lie Tracking twenty-six rounds of the 2026-2026 V.League, I recorded the number of successful crosses from both flanks. The results made me stop and check them several times. The average number of crosses per match for top-of-the-table sides fell from 18.4 in the 2026 season to 12.1 this season. Shots from outside the box rose from 4.2 to 6.8 per match. Wingers are choosing to cut inside and shoot rather than cross. But there is a problem few people notice. How effective are those shots? Over the same period, the conversion rate of shots into goals from outside the box in the V.League was just 3.1 percent. That figure is significantly lower than 4.7 percent in the Thai League and 5.2 percent in the K.League. In other words, Vietnamese teams are increasing the quantity of long-range shots without increasing their effectiveness. They are trading something of value, crosses from the flanks, for something of less value, inaccurate long shots. I remember one evening in 2026, when I set up the blog San 9 to write about Shenzhen FC in China League One. In the match against Meizhou Hakka on 16 September that year, I analysed the 4-2-3-1 formation in millimetre detail, yet the post had only 87 views. The next morning, I stood outside the training-ground fence, watching captain Ly Dong whisper to a young player who had just been substituted. I wrote The Captain Who Did Not Play, telling the story of eighteen years of following the team by Mr Tran, a loyal supporter. The piece was shared 342 times. San 9 in 2026 planted a question in me: where does football beat when no one scores? That question returned to me as I looked at the numbers on crosses and long shots. Football is not only shots. Football is passes, off-the-ball runs, and even the crosses that seem harmless. Who is responsible for the homogenisation? Look at how the top V.League sides are playing. Thep Xanh Nam Dinh, under coach Vu Hong Viet, are the most impressive attacking side this season. But look at how they organise the flanks. Their wingers cut inside constantly, opening space for overlapping full-backs. When the playmaker is without the ball, the team shifts to central combinations. Crosses from the flanks have become the last resort, not the primary option. Cong An Ha Noi, with a squad of quality, follow a similar path. Doan Van Hau pushes high on the left, but when the ball reaches his feet, he tends to pass inside to the second line rather than cross. This is the modern way. But does it work in the V.League? I rewatched the footage of Cong An Ha Noi's last ten matches. In those games, the club delivered an average of 9.4 crosses per match, far below the 15.7 figure of the 2026 season. At the same time, shots from outside the box rose to 7.2 per match. But the number of goals from those phases was only 1.3 per match. The conversion rate is alarmingly low. By contrast, look at Thanh Hoa. The team from Thanh Hoa still keep a right-footed right winger of the traditional kind, a man capable of accurate crossing. This season, Thanh Hoa have the highest rate of goals from wide phases in the league, with 0.9 goals per match coming from crosses. It is a small number, but it shows the value of retaining something others have discarded. I am not saying Thanh Hoa play better than Nam Dinh. Nam Dinh have the stronger record. But what I want to point out is this: tactical diversity is being narrowed, and that makes Vietnamese football more predictable and easier to counter. Think about it. If every team plays with inverted wingers, a full-back only needs to learn one style of defending. If every winger cuts inside, the full-back only needs to wait for that movement. Homogenisation does not merely make football less attractive. It makes football less effective. There is another angle rarely mentioned. When academies focus only on the inverted-winger model, they overlook a group of players with different skills. Players capable of sprinting down the touchline, capable of crossing accurately with both feet, are undervalued in selection sessions. I know a coach at a northern academy who once told me he was asked not to use traditional crossing drills because the coaching staff considered them outdated. He still taught them in the morning, when no one was watching. That is a silent act of resistance. And it is happening in many places. The dressing room with no spectators In the dressing room with no spectators, I heard a match that has never been broadcast. In 2026, when the pandemic emptied the stadiums, I was a new reporter for an online sports site. After the Shenzhen FC and Wuhan Zall match, a 0-0 on 7 August, I was allowed into the dressing room. Back-up goalkeeper Vuong Giai Huy, number 23, sat in a corner, his face buried in a towel. I sat beside him. He whispered: Every day I think I have no place left. He spoke of sleepless nights and anxiety. I asked permission to write the piece anonymously. The article The Applause With No One There was published, and the club arranged a psychologist for Giai Huy. He messaged me to thank me. That story taught me something about football. The most important things often do not appear on the scoreboard. The traditional winger is another version of that. He does not have flashy statistics. He does not have dazzling dribbles into central areas. But he does something few can: he creates balls out of nothing, from a space everyone knows he occupies. I once had a stumble in front of the microphone in 2026, when I mispronounced the name of Luka Modric three times during a live commentary. That stumble taught me that a mistake is not just a technical error, but a form of disrespect. Erasing the traditional winger is also a form of disrespect toward values that have been proven. The contrarian view This is what I believe, and I know it runs against the majority. The inverted winger is not an evolution. It is a tactical choice, and it is only effective when placed in the right system. In the V.League, where the quality of second-line passing remains limited, where playmakers are not always capable of creating chances from central areas, abandoning the traditional winger is a harmful trade-off. Think about it. An average V.League side can only pass with about 78 percent accuracy. They do not have midfielders like Kevin De Bruyne or Bruno Fernandes, men who can break a defence with a single pass. When they abandon crosses from the flanks, they abandon one of their most effective weapons. The traditional winger creates a different kind of pressure. He forces the full-back to confront a choice: mark tightly and block the cross, or let him go past. When he goes past, the defence must rotate, and gaps open in central areas for the strikers. This is a domino effect that the inverted winger cannot produce in the same way. I have watched Vietnam's matches in World Cup qualifying. The national team lacks diverse attacking options. When opponents have grown used to the cut-inside style, they simply funnel their shape toward the middle. Crosses from the flanks, if delivered by players with the skill, would provide a fallback option the national team currently lacks. Look at what happened at the 2026 World Cup. How did Japan beat Germany and Spain? Not only through high pressing. They used crosses from the flanks and direct attacks as well. Diversity is the key. That is the lesson Vietnamese football should remember. Those who stay I write for those who stay in the dressing room when the stadium lights have gone out. I write for the traditional wingers who still persevere with crossing practice every day, while coaches ask them to shoot with their weaker foot. I write for the quiet full-backs, the men left alone on the flank when the winger ahead of them cuts inside. A goal is only a rest note that ends a long song sung by eleven people. That song includes the crosses, the off-the-ball runs, and the moments no one remembers. There is one thing supporters of the inverted winger often overlook. Football is not an optimisation equation. It is a contest of space, time and creativity. When you remove a type of player from the system, you do not just remove a role. You remove a way of seeing the game. And when you remove diversity, you make the game poorer. What comes next Over the rest of the season, pay attention to the teams that remain loyal to the traditional winger. See whether they can create an advantage against opponents used to defending in one direction. Track their successful crosses against those of other sides. And if you have the chance, go to a small stadium on a late afternoon. Sit in Stand B, where the wind blows in, and watch the young players practise crossing. Listen to the sound of the ball as it leaves the foot and flies toward the box. It is a sound few notice. But it is still there. I believe that within a few seasons, some coach in the V.League will recognise the value of the traditional winger and build a team around them. When that happens, other teams will have to adapt. And Vietnamese football will become more diverse, harder to predict, and more interesting. The question is not whether the traditional winger will return. The question is when a coach brave enough will give them a chance.