11 Rounds Into V.League: Haiphong's Pressing Rhythm Is Slowing, and the Forgotten Name at Lach Tray

On a Tuesday afternoon, Lach Tray holds nothing but sea wind and the sound of boots. After training, I stood in the corridor leading to the dressing room and watched a young player sit for a long time, folding his muddy boots into a canvas bag, then walk back to the centre of the pitch alone. He placed the ball on the line, struck it, retrieved it, repeated. No camera. No counter. Eleven rounds of V.League have passed, and that name has all but slipped out of every bulletin. People may forget his name, but they cannot forget the sound of his boots on the pitch.

Meanwhile, in the analysis room, one number quietly changed colour. Haiphong's PPDA — the passes an opponent is allowed before each defensive action — rose from 8.4 to 12.5 across the last three matches. For anyone who tracks pressing, that is the signature of a midfield dropping off. The team runs less, yet talks more about controlling the ball. Those two things do not travel together.

This regular season has entered its closing stretch at a density of three matches in eight days. The V.League table after round 11 is not enough to conclude anything, but it is enough to show two groups splitting apart: the title contenders keeping their rhythm, and everyone else living on home points. Haiphong sit in the middle, where any single match can lift them or push them down. The relegation pressure is not loud; it shows up in training sessions running thirty minutes longer than usual, and in the coaching staff moving conditioning work to the morning to avoid the heat.

From the head-to-head record I have kept since 2026, Haiphong have won only 1 of their last 6 home meetings with the title-chasing side, drawing 3 and losing 2. Their most recent full three points came on 13 August 2026, a 2-1 win sealed by a goal in the 89th minute. In the mid-season transfer window, the club added a midfielder for an internal fee of roughly 2.8 billion dong, an outlay the board described as an investment in the future. Deals like that rarely make the front pages, yet they shape final standings far more than one headline signing.

During that stretch, a 21-year-old was pushed down to the First Division after playing just 47 minutes in the V.League. His name is Nguyen Van Hoa, a central midfielder, born in Haiphong. Internal tracking logs show he covered an average of 11.2 km per match in the youth side, the highest in the academy. In the senior team, though, he only entered when the side was already ahead or already beaten — that is, when the match no longer needed a rhythm-keeper. The forgotten man at Lach Tray is not someone who lacks quality, but someone who was never placed in the right situation.

I have followed Hoa since July. Not through bulletins, but by sitting at the training-ground fence and logging his running rhythm in transition drills. Based on my experience tracking matches, a central midfielder only reveals his value when the team presses high; when the team drops deep, he becomes a clearer of dead balls and disappears from the passing map. Hoa belongs to the first group. The problem is that Haiphong are shifting into the second.

The last three matches make it plain: the starting shape stayed 4-2-3-1, but the central midfield pair swapped roles. The deeper midfielder no longer steps up to cut the opponent's lateral passing lanes; he drops level with the centre-backs, forming a back four plus one. The consequence is a widening gap in front of the box. Opponents pass into it, turn, and Haiphong have to run back. PPDA rose not because the team runs less, but because the team runs in the wrong places.

The interesting part is the left flank. The left-back still pushes high as before, but the cover behind him has changed. Previously, the left-sided central midfielder screened when the full-back advanced; now that role belongs to a winger who is not used to reading defensive situations. The result: 6 of Haiphong's last 9 goals conceded came from the left flank or from second balls after the left flank was opened up. This is data I logged myself, not published figures, so I state it as a trend rather than an absolute conclusion.

Second balls are the hinge. When a team sits deep, every clearance becomes a midfield duel. Haiphong won 48% of second balls across the last three matches, down from 57% early in the season. That rate does not explain everything, but it matches what the stands feel: the ball breaks, and there is always a blue shirt standing closer. Lach Tray is empty of people, yet the goal still holds the shape of a goalkeeper sitting and waiting — and in those three matches, that waiting keeper faced an average of 4.3 shots on target per game, roughly half again as many as early in the season.

From the outside, the story is told differently. People blame the referee in the match against the title contenders, where Haiphong conceded a penalty in the 78th minute. People also say the team lost a striker to injury, and that without a scorer, defeat is natural. I have sat long enough in the technical area not to believe that easy explanation. This team did not lose because it could not score, but because it let opponents score in exactly the zone its system was built to protect.

Here is the counter-intuitive point: when a team loses its striker, the instinct is to drop back and protect the scoreline. For Haiphong, dropping back is precisely what unlocks their own padlock. This side is built to press high, to push central midfielders up and turn the opponent's ground into home ground. When they retreat, they do not become safer; they become more predictable. Outsiders see a defence under pressure and conclude the defence is weak. In reality, the midfield stopped working from the 60th minute, and the defence is only paying the bill.

The dressing room does not lie. It only stays quiet long enough for you to hear the truth. After the most recent defeat, I stood at the door and heard the captain say one short line to Hoa — just recalled to the senior squad: "You go in, don't drop." Those three words explain Haiphong's entire tactical problem in this stretch.

So what is the next internal signal? If the coaching staff keep Hoa in the senior squad and pair him with the other central midfielder in a high-pressing shape, PPDA will fall back into the 8-9 range within two rounds. If they keep using him as a fallback option once the match is settled, that number will keep rising, and the left flank will keep being where goals are found. Moscow has snow, Haiphong has sea wind. Football puts both into one story: small clubs live by holding on to who they are, not by imitating the big ones.

I go to the ground not to watch who scores, but to watch who gets up after a missed shot. That 21-year-old still stays behind after training, still strikes, still retrieves. His team needs exactly what he has. The only question left is whether anyone at Lach Tray will choose to see it before the season closes.