Kashima's Tempo and Hanoi Police's First Lesson in the AFC Champions League Elite

At Hang Day Stadium, on a late autumn afternoon, I stood at the edge of the touchline and saw something very small. Nguyen Dinh Bac sat down to retie his shoelaces. He tied them slowly, more slowly than necessary, as if trying to stretch out a pause before stepping into training. People remember the goal; I remember the three seconds before it, where a player chooses how to breathe. And at that training session, the way Dinh Bac breathed told me more than any statistical table about the state of Hanoi Police Club ahead of their match against Kashima Antlers.

This is the first time the police-sector club has entered Asia's biggest club competition. Their opponent is a powerhouse from the J.League, a team that won the AFC Champions League in 2026, a team on a four-match unbeaten run across all competitions, and one that just scored seven goals past Newcastle Jets in a continental fixture. The gap between the two sides, if reduced to a squad valuation number, is roughly 21.93 million euros versus 6.45 million euros, more than three and a half times. But that number, dry as it is, is the most honest signal we have.

I sat for a long time in the technical area after that training session. Because the real story of this match is not in the score that will appear on the electronic board, but in what I call tempo. Hanoi Police are not struggling because they do not know what to do. They are struggling because they must do the right thing at a speed they have never experienced.

Context: when the V.League touches the J.League

To understand this match, it must be placed in its proper frame. The AFC Champions League Elite is Asia's top-tier competition, where the strongest clubs from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East meet in a format that is more concentrated, higher in intensity, and demanding of physical and mental endurance at a level far beyond domestic leagues. For Hanoi Police, this is entirely new territory. Coach Alexandre Polking himself said that everything about this club in continental competition is very new.

On the other side, Kashima Antlers are not new. They are regulars in this arena, one of the most traditional clubs in Japanese football, with their peak being the 2026 Asian title. They come to Vietnam as the highest-rated team in the group, and notably, they achieve this without relying on an expensive foreign contingent. Their squad is mostly Japanese players, yet their total squad value still far exceeds Hanoi Police's.

That is the key point I want readers to grasp clearly from the start. The gap here is not a money gap in the sense of one team buying stars and the other not. The gap here is a development-quality gap. Kashima has a squad value many times higher even though their composition is predominantly local. This means Japan's development system has produced players the market values at a very different level. Hanoi Police, and more broadly Vietnamese football, faces a systemic gap that cannot be filled by a single transfer window.

I have spent many years following clubs in both football cultures. I stood at the Istra base in 2026, watching Kylian Mbappe clench his hands two seconds before receiving the ball. I sat for an entire afternoon in Suzhou in 2026, watching a goalkeeper train alone on an empty pitch inside the pandemic bubble. That experience taught me that some things only appear when you stand close enough, and some things only appear when you stand far enough. The match between Hanoi Police and Kashima needs both distances.

Up close, I see fitness signals. Nguyen Dinh Bac, Le Pham Thanh Long, Cao Quang Vinh, Adou Minh, the team's key names, have all played continuously for both club and national team. And Bui Hoang Viet Anh, the center-back considered a crucial anchor, is injured. In a match where the team must run more than usual to compensate for the quality gap, losing a center-back and having key players already drained is the worst possible signal.

From afar, I see a familiar picture of Asian football. Southeast Asia plays with emotion, with cohesion, with explosive moments. East Asia plays with discipline, with structure, with a regularity so monotonous it becomes boring yet effective. This match is where these two ways of keeping rhythm collide. And when two different rhythms collide, the faster one usually decides the outcome.

Tempo is the problem, not the formation

Polking's pre-match comments, when I reread them several times, contain one sentence worth more than the whole speech. He spoke of the stronger intensity and higher match tempo of the J.League. I emphasize this because it is the most tactically meaningful statement in everything we have.

Many people analyzing a match like this will talk about formations. This team plays 4-4-2, that team plays 4-2-3-1, this team builds a low block, that team presses high. But a formation is just a blueprint. What decides the match is the speed at which that blueprint is executed. A low block built and held at V.League tempo can survive. The same low block, if the opponent passes half a second faster per pass, if they move off the ball one beat earlier, will see gaps open faster than the ability to react.

That is why I say Hanoi Police's problem is not knowing what to do. They know. An underdog playing at home will build a block at mid or low height, keep distances between lines, concede possession in non-dangerous areas, and wait for counter-attacking chances. This is a rational formula, validated over decades of football. The problem is that this formula only works when the team keeps its rhythm.

I have witnessed matches where a Southeast Asian team played very well for the first 30 minutes, held their distances, disrupted the opponent's rhythm, then collapsed in the first 15 minutes of the second half when fitness dropped and the opponent accelerated. That is not a tactical failure. It is a fitness failure. And when you face a J.League team in strong form, the window in which you can hold your rhythm is shorter than usual.

Kashima are unbeaten in their last four matches across all competitions. They scored seven against Newcastle Jets. A result like that is an outlier and should not be taken as a baseline, because scoring seven does not happen often. But it says something about their mental state and their ability to convert chances. When a team in that state meets a depleted and tired defense, every mistake has a price.

I recall a match I once followed in the Chinese Super League. A strong team faced a side far weaker in resources. The weak team played correctly, keeping a clean sheet in the first half. But by the 60th minute, their full-back, who had to mark a faster player, began to slow by half a step. Just half a step. And the opponent scored from exactly that half step. The match ended with a scoreline that said nothing about how well the weak team had played for the first 60 minutes.

The same could happen to Hanoi Police. And if it does, people will again talk about formations, about individual errors, about the coach choosing the wrong players. While what truly decided it was tempo, and tempo is largely beyond the control of a team that can only control it for a limited time.

The heartbeat of a depleted defense

There is one detail I want readers to hold onto. An empty stadium means a bigger goal, and the goalkeeper stands there as a keeper of rhythm for himself. But here the stadium is not empty; Hang Day will be full, and that means the goal, in the defenders' minds, is smaller. The noise of the home crowd can be a source of strength, as Polking said, but it can also be a source of pressure if the team cannot hold its rhythm.

Hanoi Police's defense enters this match with a confirmed hole. Bui Hoang Viet Anh is injured. This is a loss not only in professional terms but in organizational terms. A center-back does not just tackle; he is also the commander of the defensive line, the one who keeps distances, the one who decides when to push up and when to drop back. When that rhythm-keeper is lost, the whole defense can fall out of sync.

I have observed how defenses lose rhythm. It starts with very small details. A full-back pushing half a step higher than planned. A center-back turning one beat slower. A defensive midfielder failing to cover in time. These deviations, individually, are insignificant. But added together, they create gaps, and at continental level, a gap is enough for a J.League player to put the ball in the net.

The fitness problem of key players compounds this. Dinh Bac, Thanh Long, Quang Vinh, Adou Minh have all played continuously. In modern football, when the schedule is dense, players' bodies do not have enough time to recover. And this is where I want to state my professional view plainly, a view I have held for many years: fixture congestion is the biggest culprit behind injuries. No medical team can save a club forced to play two matches a week for months on end. Viet Anh's injury, though its cause is not specified, is the clearest evidence of the overload problem.

This brings me to a question I cannot answer with numbers, but can answer with observation. When a team has a group of key players carrying too much, their strength becomes their weakness. They depend on people they cannot replace. And when those people tire, the whole system shakes.

The sound of grass cleats and the pause before the ball rolls

There are training sessions no one films, but I keep them in my ear: the sound of grass cleats, the steady rhythm of drills like a heartbeat. I have been close enough to the team to hear the difference between an ordinary session and a tense one. And before a match like this, tension is normal.

Polking, in how he speaks about the match, shows a calculated calm. He acknowledges the opponent's quality, acknowledges the gap, but also emphasizes home advantage. This is very wise expectation management. It protects the players psychologically, and it also prepares the fans for an outcome that may not go their way.

But there is one thing expectation management cannot solve: the question of selection. And this is where I want to pause longer, because it contains a genuine tactical paradox.

Two logics are colliding in Hanoi Police's personnel decision. The first logic says this team plays better with domestic players, because they are cohesive, they understand each other, they run to the exact spots their teammates expect. The second logic says when facing a team stronger in individual quality, you need to field the players with the highest individual quality you have, and that means maximizing foreign players.

These two logics cannot both be right in every situation. They are right at different phases of the match. In the defensive phase, when the team must build a block and endure pressure, the cohesion of domestic players is more valuable. Players who understand each other will move in sync, cover for each other at the right time, hold the structure longer. But in the attacking transition phase, when the team has the ball and needs to create a difference in a moment, the individual quality of foreign players is more valuable. A better touch, a harder shot, a faster speed can create a goal out of nothing.

This is a hard choice. And it is harder still when you know the domestic key players are tired. The consideration of maximizing foreign players may not be a pure tactical preference, but a reaction to the fitness state of the internationals. In other words, it may be rotation forced by circumstance, not a voluntary choice.

I have seen this many times. A coach says he wants to use many foreign players, and people think it is his philosophy. But when you look at the injury list and the minutes played by domestic key players, you understand he does not have many choices. Circumstance chose for him.

Three seconds before the defender decides to foul

I want to bring readers into a specific moment, because that is where the match is truly decided. Not at the goal. But three seconds before the defender decides to foul.

Imagine a Kashima player receiving the ball at the edge of the box, facing the goal. A Hanoi Police defender stands a meter away. In the next three seconds, the defender must make a decision. He can close down and try to win the ball, accepting the risk of being beaten. He can drop back, keep his distance, accepting the risk of giving the opponent shooting space. Or he can foul, accepting a yellow card or a free kick, but ending the attack immediately.

At V.League tempo, the defender has a little more time to make this decision. At J.League tempo, that time is compressed. And when time is compressed, the decision becomes harder, and the error rate rises. One wrong decision in those three seconds can lead to a goal. And in a match where the team must endure pressure for long stretches, there will be many such three-second moments.

This is why I speak of tempo rather than formation. The formation can be right, but if the defender does not have enough time to execute it correctly, the formation becomes meaningless. And the time to execute depends on fitness and on the opponent's speed.

A ball placed down, the whole stadium holds its breath; I hear Zahavi's heartbeat before his foot touches the leather. That memory returns to me whenever I think about decisive moments. Zahavi, in sessions after the team had dispersed, always performed his own free-kick ritual. I spent many afternoons watching him place the ball, step back, and perform that motion. What I learned from Zahavi was not how to shoot, but how he created a controlled pause before acting.

Hanoi Police's defenders will not have that pause in this match. They will have to decide while the world around them moves faster than they would like. And that is the hardest lesson of continental football.

What the number does not say

I have spoken of the gap between 21.93 million euros and 6.45 million euros. But I want to say more about what that number does not say.

That number does not say that the gap on the pitch may be even larger than the gap on paper. Because in football, quality does not add up linearly. A team whose squad is worth three and a half times more is not just three and a half times stronger. They are stronger exponentially, because they have depth to rotate, substitute quality to change a match from the bench, and coaches and systems to optimize each individual. The effective gap on the pitch is often larger than the gap on the valuation table.

But that number also does not say that this is a match without a chance. Because football has variables the number cannot capture. Home advantage is a variable. The crowd is a variable. The cohesion of a group of players who have played together for years is a variable. And sometimes, the complacency of the stronger team is a variable.

Kashima will come to Vietnam with the mindset of a favorite. They are rated the strongest team in the group. They just scored seven. They might, at some moment, be complacent. And if they are complacent, Hanoi Police might exploit it. This is a narrow but real path in football.

However, I do not want readers to cling to that slender hope while ignoring reality. The reality is that this team is in poor physical condition, missing a key center-back, and facing an opponent in strong form. That is the reality from which any honest analysis must begin.

A counterintuitive angle: when cohesion matters more than quality

There is a common belief in football that when you are weaker, you should field your best players. It sounds reasonable. But it is often wrong in this specific context.

When a Southeast Asian team faces an East Asian team stronger in quality, maximizing foreign players can backfire in the defensive phase. Because defense is not the sum of good defensive individuals. Defense is a coordinated system, where distances, timing, and mutual understanding between players matter more than individual skill. A group of domestic players who have played together for years can build a more solid block than a group of talented but uncoordinated foreign players.

This is especially true when the opponent plays at high tempo. Because at high tempo, decisions must be made quickly, and mutual understanding between players allows them to decide faster. A domestic player who knows where his teammate will run can cover without looking. A newly arrived foreign player lacks that understanding, and at the decisive moment, he may hesitate half a second. That half second, at continental level, is a goal.

So the optimal choice may not be maximizing foreign players, but a calculated balance. Use enough foreign players to have individual quality in the attacking transition, but keep enough domestic players to maintain cohesion in the defensive phase. This is a problem with no perfect answer, only a least-wrong one.

But here, circumstance may have chosen for Polking in a way he did not want. If the domestic key players are exhausted, then using them for cohesion becomes counterproductive, because a tired player cannot maintain distances even if he understands the system. Fitness and cohesion cannot be separated. A system only works when the players have enough energy to execute it.

This is the biggest blind spot in the whole story. People talk about tactics, about formations, about personnel choices. But what decides everything is the state of the legs. And Hanoi Police's legs are tired.

The rhythm before the goal: where the match is truly decided

I have always believed that a match is decided in the pauses no one records. Not at the moment the ball hits the net, but at the moment before, when a player decides to run, when a defender decides to stop, when a goalkeeper decides to rush out or stay.

For Hanoi Police, the decisive pauses will come early. If they keep a clean sheet for the first 30 minutes, the match will enter the trajectory they want. The crowd will believe, the team will believe, and the pressure will shift to Kashima. But if they concede early, the script changes. They will have to push up to find an equalizer, and pushing up against a team good at counter-attacking is a recipe for disaster.

This is why I believe the most reasonable tactic is to endure. Not to endure passively, but to endure in an organized way. Hold the block, hold the distances, accept conceding possession in non-dangerous areas, and wait. Wait for an opponent's mistake, a moment of complacency, a corner. In football, the weaker team often wins by making the match ugly, because an ugly match reduces the quality gap.

But the tactic of endurance requires something Hanoi Police may not have enough of: energy. Enduring pressure consumes more energy than attacking. Every run chasing the ball, every turn, every jump drains the battery. And when the battery drains, the block breaks apart.

I have seen this in the defeat I once followed. The team played well in the first half, held the game, then collapsed in the second half when their legs stopped obeying. That goalkeeper, the one I watched train alone on an empty pitch, made five saves in that match but still had to pick the ball out of the net three times. He did everything he could, but he could not save a system that was disintegrating from exhaustion.

That is the scenario Hanoi Police must avoid at all costs. And the only way to avoid it is to manage energy wisely, which rotation of personnel allows.

Signals from the bench

One of the things I always watch in big matches is the starting lineup. It reveals more than any coach's statement. When the lineup is announced, we will know the severity of the fitness crisis.

If Polking sends out a heavily rotated lineup, it means he knows the state of his key players and is trying to preserve them for more important matches in the domestic league. If he sends out his strongest lineup, it means he believes this match is important enough to warrant the trade-off, or that the fitness situation is not as bad as we think.

Reading lineups is a skill I have honed over many years. It is not an exact science. Sometimes a coach sends out his strongest lineup not because he believes in victory, but because he wants to avoid a heavy defeat. Sometimes he rotates not because he has given up on the match, but because he is thinking of a bigger picture.

For Hanoi Police, the bigger picture is the domestic season and the club's long-term development. The match against Kashima, important as it is for honor and experience, may not be the match this club is betting everything on. And if so, rotation is reasonable, even if it may make the result worse.

Lessons from past encounters

Vietnamese football is no stranger to matches like this. We have repeatedly seen domestic clubs enter continental competition as underdogs, and we have learned some lessons.

The first lesson is that the tempo gap is real and harder to overcome than the technical gap. A Vietnamese player may have good individual technique, may handle the ball skillfully, but when he must do so at the speed imposed by Japanese or Korean players, he often cannot keep up. This is not a talent issue. It is a playing-environment issue. East Asian players grow up in an environment where high tempo is the norm, and their bodies are trained to meet it from a young age.

The second lesson is that continental experience has cumulative value. Every match in this arena, regardless of the result, gives players a lesson no domestic match can give. Polking himself spoke of the path toward continental level. That path has no shortcut. It is built by matches like this.

The third lesson, and perhaps the most important, is that a systemic gap cannot be filled by individual effort. Kashima has a squad value many times higher than Hanoi Police, and they achieve this with a mostly Japanese squad. This means their development system produces continental-class players consistently. This is something Vietnamese football needs to build in the long term, not through a few expensive contracts, but through a sustainable development system.

I recall a conversation with a coach in Guangzhou. He told me that football cannot buy tempo. You can buy players, buy coaches, buy facilities. But tempo is something trained from when a player is young, and it permeates how they play. That is why a team can change players but still keep its tempo, or a team can buy good players but cannot acquire that tempo.

About the opponent: what Kashima brings

Kashima Antlers are not a strange team to those who follow Asian football. They are one of the most successful clubs in the J.League, with a clear playing philosophy and a renowned development system.

What is notable about Kashima is that they play a structured game. They control the ball through off-ball movement, create passing triangles, and patiently wait for gaps. They are not flashy, not reliant on spectacular individual plays. They rely on the steady repetition of trained movement patterns.

This style is very hard to play against for an underdog. Because it does not give you a chance to counter-attack. If you defend well, they will patiently pass and wait for you to make a mistake. If you push up to press, they will exploit the space behind you. They have many ways to win, and that makes them a very uncomfortable opponent.

The seven-goal win over Newcastle Jets, though an outlier, shows they can convert chances ruthlessly. When a team in that state gets a favorable moment, they can turn it into a one-sided match. And that places a very high demand on defensive discipline for Hanoi Police.

But Kashima can also make mistakes. Any team can make mistakes. And in football, the favorite sometimes loses focus when they feel too comfortable. This is the crack an underdog can exploit. But to exploit it, you must still have enough energy to wait until it appears.

What I cannot yet assess

I want to devote a section to what I cannot assess from the available information. Because an honest analysis must acknowledge its limits.

I do not have expected-goals data for either team, no passes-allowed-per-defensive-action data, no pass-completion figures. This means I cannot precisely quantify the playing styles of the two teams. I can only rely on qualitative signals and on what I observe.

I also have no information on Hanoi Police's financial situation, wage structure, or position regarding Asian financial fair play regulations. These are important factors in assessing a club's sustainability, but they are beyond what I know.

And I do not have detailed information on some data points cited in reports. There are numbers and claims of unclear origin, and in my experience, numbers of unclear origin should be treated cautiously. Kashima's four-match unbeaten run is a more reliable signal than the seven-goal result, because it reflects a trend, while the seven-goal result may be a one-off.

I also want to mention the difference between headline and content. Some headlines speak of determination to earn points, but the content concludes that winning or drawing is very difficult. This difference is normal in pre-match journalism, but it is a signal that we should read the content rather than only the headline.

Signals to track next

After this match, there are several signals I will track.

First is the starting lineup. It will tell me the severity of the fitness crisis and how Polking weighs the continental stage against the domestic league.

Second is the first 30 minutes. If Hanoi Police keep a clean sheet, it is a sign that their block is working. If they concede early, the script will be very different.

Third is how Kashima press in the opening minutes. If they press high from the start, it means they want to end the match early before Hanoi Police's fitness becomes a factor.

Fourth is Bui Hoang Viet Anh's status. If he is absent, Hanoi Police's defense will be significantly weakened, and that will affect subsequent matches.

And fifth is the post-match media story. If Hanoi Police lose heavily, the narrative could shift from valuable experience to questions about Vietnamese football's competitiveness on the continental stage. This is a signal worth tracking, because it reflects how we face the systemic gap.

On the role of experience

I want to devote a paragraph to how I view the value of this match, because this is where I may differ from many.

Many will judge this match by the result. A win is success, a draw is acceptable, a loss is failure. This is football's natural way of judging, and I understand it. But for a club entering continental competition for the first time, this way of judging can obscure other values.

I have followed football across eight Olympics, eight World Cups, and many grand cycling tours. I have learned that in sport, the value of an event is not only in the final result. It is also in what participants learn, in what spectators witness, in what is built for the future.

For Hanoi Police, the match against Kashima is a test of tempo. It will show players what they need to improve to compete at continental level. It will show the coaching staff what they need to add. And it will show fans the real gap between Vietnamese and Japanese football, not through words but through direct experience.

This is the value of continental experience. It cannot be replaced by any domestic match, however important. And if Hanoi Police continue to participate in this arena in the coming years, those experiences will accumulate and become part of the club's identity.

On the balance between two fronts

There is one aspect I want to analyze further, because it is often overlooked in discussions of matches like this.

Hanoi Police do not only play in the AFC Champions League Elite. They also play in the domestic league, where they are one of the top contenders. And balancing two fronts is a major challenge, especially for a squad without much depth.

This is where the concept of rotation becomes important. A big club with a deep squad can rotate between fronts without losing much quality. A club with a thin squad must choose, and every choice has its price. If they pour energy into the continental stage, they may drop points domestically. If they pour energy into the domestic league, they may lose heavily in continental play.

I have seen Chinese clubs face this problem when they participated in both their domestic league and the AFC Champions League. Wealthy clubs could rotate two nearly equivalent lineups. Less wealthy clubs had to choose, and usually they chose the domestic league, because that is where they make their living. This meant they entered continental matches with a less-than-full-strength lineup, and the results were often poor.

For Hanoi Police, I do not know how they will choose. But I know that the choice will be reflected in the starting lineup, and that is why I say the starting lineup is the most important signal.

On specific players

I want to talk about a few specific players, because this match will be a test for them.

Nguyen Dinh Bac is a rising young player. He has speed and boldness, and he is the type of player regional clubs monitor. In a match like this, Dinh Bac will face experienced and disciplined Japanese defenders. This is a chance for him to learn, but also a physical challenge, because he has played a lot.

Le Pham Thanh Long is a player at the peak of his career. He is the type of midfielder who can do many things: defend, distribute the ball, and join the attack. In a match where the team must endure pressure, Thanh Long's role in midfield will be very important. If he can hold the ball and slow the match's tempo, the team can get necessary breaks. But if he is overwhelmed, the midfield will break.

Bui Hoang Viet Anh, if he cannot play, is the biggest loss. This center-back is the organizer of the defense, and his absence will leave a hard-to-fill void.

Adou Minh and Cao Quang Vinh are players who can play an important role in the transition phase. If they can create dangerous counter-attacks, the team may have a chance. But if they must spend most of their time defending, their value will be limited.

What I want to emphasize is that no single player can change this match alone. This is a team match, and the result will depend on how that team operates as a block.

On the patience of the fans

One thing I have always cherished about Vietnamese football fans is their patience. They understand that their team is in a learning phase on the continental stage, and they are willing to wait.

But that patience should not be mistaken for indifference. Vietnamese fans care deeply about football, and they have the right to demand progress. The question is how to balance patience with difficult matches and expectations of development.

I believe the answer lies in looking at the process rather than only the result. A defeat can be a step forward if the team learns something. A draw can be a step backward if the team does not improve. What matters is whether the team is heading in the right direction.

And the right direction, in my view, is toward narrowing the tempo gap. That is a long process, requiring investment in youth development, in facilities, in creating a higher-tempo playing environment at home. There is no short-term solution to this problem.

The final pause

On the empty stand, I learned that football does not need cheering; it needs someone still enough to hear the goalkeeper's sigh. But Hang Day will not be empty. It will be full of cheering, and within that cheering, there will be pauses only those standing close enough can hear.

I will be there, at the edge of the touchline, recording those pauses. I will watch how Hanoi Police's defenders stand before a Kashima attack. I will watch how they breathe after each run back. I will watch how Polking stands in the technical area, and how he reacts when the match goes one way or another.

And I will remember that behind all the analysis of squad gaps, of tempo, of fitness, is a football match. A match in which twenty-two people will run on a grass surface, and within ninety minutes, they will write a story no one can fully predict.

That is why I love football. Not for the numbers, but for the pauses. Not for known results, but for the unknown. And the match between Hanoi Police and Kashima Antlers is one of those matches.

People will remember the goal; I remember the three seconds before it, where a player chooses how to breathe. And in this match, there will be many such three seconds.

A thought to carry

The gap between Hanoi Police and Kashima Antlers cannot be narrowed in one match, and perhaps not in one season. But every match like this is a brick on a long road. The question is not whether this club can beat the Japanese club. The question is how much more clearly they will understand their gap after this match, and what they will do with that understanding.

If they use it to demand more of themselves, of the development system, of how they prepare for the next matches, then this match has value regardless of the result. If they let it pass as a mere experience, then the learning opportunity will vanish.

Asian football is changing fast. Southeast Asian clubs are improving, but East Asian clubs are not standing still either. The tempo race has no finish line. It only has those who run faster and those who run slower. And the task of Hanoi Police, as of Vietnamese football, is to run faster than yesterday.

The match against Kashima will show us where they stand in that race. And whatever the result, I will be there, listening to the match's heartbeat, and recording what the scoreboard cannot express.