2026-2027 National Cup: Four V-League Clubs Fall and the Real Invoice Behind It

In the 94th minute at Quy Nhon stadium, the referee pointed to the penalty spot. A Hoang Anh Gia Lai player placed the ball, struck it low into the corner, pulled the score back to 2-3, and the final whistle sounded almost at the same moment. No celebration lasted more than a few seconds. The stands were sparse, because this was not Pleiku. The mountain-town club's real home ground is having its pitch rebuilt after repeated heavy rain left it draining poorly. A team playing away from home, meeting a hungrier Hung Yen, and leaving the National Cup at the qualifying stage.

Over the same weekend, Thanh Hoa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City. Hai Phong lost 0-1 to Thep Can Tho. Hong Linh Ha Tinh fell in a penalty shootout to hosts Phu Tho after a 0-0 draw over 90 minutes. Four V-League representatives went down to first-division sides, three of them at home. Only Bac Ninh escaped, winning 3-2 away at Long An.

People remember the goal, but I remember the moment before the whistle. That moment says more than the scoreline.

The gap is narrower than the ranking

To read these eight qualifying matches correctly, you have to remember one thing about the structure of Vietnamese football: V-League and the first division sit one rung apart on paper, but the real strength gap between the bottom of V-League and the top of the first division is far narrower than that ranking suggests.

Becamex Ho Chi Minh City were just relegated and are a heavyweight candidate to go straight back up. Their squad is no weaker than hosts Thanh Hoa, they played with more conviction, and they won without much difficulty. Thep Can Tho had just relocated from Quang Ninh to Can Tho, had just lost their opening first-division match, and then days later won away at Hai Phong through the only goal of Thaileon, a striker who had joined the club only days earlier and scored inside the first half. Hung Yen had nothing to lose, while Hoang Anh Gia Lai had a great deal to lose.

What the surprise names share is that they are at their sharpest in terms of motivation. First-division clubs enter the National Cup with a clear objective: a win over a V-League club means prize money, prestige, and momentum for the whole first-division season.

On the other side, Thanh Hoa expose the condition of the V-League's lower group most clearly. The club from Thanh Hoa province only learned it still existed just before the 2026-2027 V-League began. Their squad is thin because there is not enough funding to keep key players or sign new ones. Then on September 16, a document arrived from FIFA: the club must pay more than 305,000 US dollars, roughly eight billion dong, to Rimario Gordon, after the Jamaican striker filed a claim. If it is not resolved within 45 days, the club will be barred from registering new players for three transfer windows. The complication is that the debt arose during the previous sponsor's tenure, while the club has since been handed over to a new sponsor.

Placed side by side, those two stories explain almost the entire weekend's results.

The National Cup is a cost centre, not a trophy centre

For many V-League clubs, especially those without title ambitions, the National Cup is not a primary arena. The deeper you go, the more you spend on travel and accommodation, the more you have to rotate a thin squad, the more risk you carry for your key players. Staying in V-League, meanwhile, is a condition of existence.

The economic value of one survival spot far exceeds the value of one Cup round. That is why these clubs approach the Cup rather indifferently, and that indifference is precisely what opens the door for first-division sides to show greater determination.

In recent seasons, the National Cup qualifying round has always been the round V-League clubs calculate most carefully. A two-day trip for a thirty-man squad, hotel bills, transport, allowances, plus the risk of losing a key player to injury in a match nobody remembers three months later. Every coaching staff knows that equation by heart.

Based on my experience following matches across several competitions in the region, I always check three things before calling a Cup result a shock: whether the starting eleven is the strongest available, the travel distance for the away side, and the fixture list that follows. In this qualifying round, all three indicators tilted towards the first-division clubs.

Look at Hai Phong. Their 2026-2027 V-League start was not bad, one loss and one win. But losing 0-1 at home to Thep Can Tho is not a catastrophe, it is a calculation. Hong Linh Ha Tinh are the same, with one loss and one win in V-League, before being eliminated by Phu Tho on penalties.

The shootout in Phu Tho deserves separate mention. I hate VAR because it is right too often. Football is interesting because it is wrong too often. Penalties are the part of football machines cannot touch, where a 0-0 draw over 90 minutes says nothing and eleven metres says everything about the character of a team trying to prove it belongs somewhere else.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai are the most interesting case, because they had no intention of letting go. They were 1-3 down until the 77th minute, pulled it back to 2-3 from the spot in the 94th, and left the competition having given everything. Their problem is structure, not attitude. After two straight defeats in the 2026-2027 V-League, the season for coach Le Quang Trai's men is already defined: fight for survival. This season's squad is weaker than last year's. Against a Hung Yen full of ambition, defeat came quickly.

The media shock is only a crack on the submerged ice of fate.

Where I could be wrong

There is another way to tell this story, and it is no less convincing: do not call it V-League clubs throwing the Cup away. Call it first-division clubs improving faster than we assume.

Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thep Can Tho, Hung Yen and Phu Tho all have concrete reasons to be strong: one side just relegated and wanting to return, one that has just changed locality and needs a new identity, the rest building belief for a first-division season. That motivation exists independently; it is not a by-product of opponents letting go.

The empty summer of 2026 taught me that silence is also a form of rebellion. Here, the silence of V-League clubs, none of them publicly saying they treat the National Cup as a secondary competition, is the clearest statement of all. They do not need to announce it. The starting eleven speaks for them.

And I also have to challenge one of my own habitual assumptions: is an early Cup exit really good for Hoang Anh Gia Lai? A team in a squad crisis and on a losing run does not necessarily need more rest. It needs winning rhythm. Another defeat, in any competition, is still a defeat. A group that learns the habit of losing for long enough will carry that habit into the decisive match.

For Thanh Hoa, the problem is not attitude either. It is governance. A 305,000 US dollar debt from a previous sponsor's tenure, now threatening three transfer windows for the new owners, is a legal and financial problem, not a tactical one. Winning or losing a Cup tie does not solve it.

A verifiable prediction

The 2026-2027 National Cup qualifying round will be mentioned again when the season reaches its closing stretch. By then, two things can be checked.

First: how many first-division clubs survive once the round of 16 is done. If it is three or more, this weekend's results are no longer a surprise, but a sign that the gap between the two tiers is closing.

Second: whether Thanh Hoa pay the 305,000 US dollars to Rimario Gordon within 45 days, and if not, what becomes of their next three transfer windows. For a club that only learned it still existed just before the season, a transfer ban is more dangerous than any Cup defeat.

As for Hoang Anh Gia Lai, who left the competition having given everything, they will be measured by a completely different yardstick: their next V-League matches. The National Cup lets them walk away. The V-League is where they have to live.