Four V.League Clubs Fall in the 2026-2027 National Cup: Survival Is the Order, the Cup Is a Burden

In the 90+4th minute at Quy Nhon stadium, the referee pointed to the penalty spot. Hoang Anh Gia Lai pulled one back to make it 2-3 against Hung Yen. No cheer from the stands was loud enough to fill the emptiness. Quy Nhon is only a temporary home for the team from the highlands, because Pleiku is being re-laid after heavy rain exposed its poor drainage. Losing the home crowd, the club lost its most familiar weapon. So the penalty in the 90+4th minute was nothing more than a final gasp at the end of a weekend in which V.League representatives fell one after another.

Eight qualifying matches of the 2026-2027 National Cup were played across two weekend days. Four V.League clubs lost to first-division opponents. Three of them lost at home. Only Bac Ninh escaped, winning 3-2 away at Long An. I sat down and rewatched the footage of all four defeats, writing out every goal and every substitution. The more I watched, the clearer it became that this run of results did not come from bad luck.

The summer of 2026 taught me one thing: people remember the shock merchant more than the transfer deal. But this weekend nobody needed to shock anyone. The clubs wrote the story themselves and then put themselves in a position where they had to explain it.

Context: eight matches, four falls

Thanh Hoa lost 0-2 at home to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, a club that had just been relegated and is now a promotion contender. The visitors' squad was in no way inferior to the hosts', and they played with greater determination, so the win came without much difficulty. This is the kind of match a V.League side usually assumes it will win on reputation alone, only to discover that reputation does not run for anyone on the pitch.

Following Thanh Hoa, Hoang Anh Gia Lai lost 2-3 to Hung Yen at Quy Nhon. The highland club conceded three times, trailed 1-3 from the 77th minute, and only pulled one back from the penalty spot in the 90+4th. Without the familiar support of their own fans, against a Hung Yen side desperate to win, the team managed by Le Quang Trai all but gave up in the final twenty minutes.

Playing at home, Hai Phong also lost 0-1 to Thep Can Tho, a club that has just relocated from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta and had lost its opening fixture of the 2026-2027 first division season. Having joined the club only days earlier, striker Thaileon scored the only goal of the match in the first half. A newcomer who had barely learned his teammates' names was enough to dismantle the home defence.

In the remaining fixture, Hong Linh Ha Tinh lost 2-3 on penalties away to Phu Tho, after a 0-0 draw over 90 minutes. It is the least painful defeat on paper, but it says the most about attitude: a V.League side that could not score once in 90 minutes against a lower-division opponent.

For many V.League clubs, especially those without ambition, the National Cup is not a primary competition. The deeper you go, the more you spend on travel and accommodation, and the more you have to worry about your squad, while survival in the V.League matters far more. So these V.League representatives tend to approach the National Cup with a shrug, giving first-division sides the chance to spring surprises by showing greater commitment.

Why V.League clubs let the cup go

One thing needs saying plainly, even if few want to hear it: in this competition, what is being traded is not honour but budget. A mid-round National Cup away trip includes flights or sleeper buses, hotels, meals, allowances, bonuses, and the compensation bill if a key player gets injured. For clubs living on provincial budgets and short-term sponsorship, every such trip is an outgoing line with no revenue attached.

Survival in the V.League generates revenue, or at least protects it. Relegation means losing sponsorship, losing broadcast rights, losing fans, and losing the ability to keep players. So when forced to choose between a National Cup qualifier and an early V.League fixture, the coaching staff choose the latter. Nobody says it out loud, but the starting eleven says it for them.

The five-substitution rule makes this divide even sharper. In a cup tie lasting 90 minutes or more, a deep squad can throw on five quality substitutes across the final half hour, turning the last twenty minutes into a war of attrition. First-division sides have motivation and legs, but not always the corresponding depth. V.League sides have the depth but no reason to spend it on a competition they do not need to win.

The result is a paradox: for a first-division club this is the biggest opportunity of the season; for a V.League club it is the biggest risk of the week. When the two sides walk out in completely different mental states, the score tilts towards whoever wants it more, regardless of the division printed on paper.

Money decides, not talent

Thanh Hoa are the clearest illustration. The club from Thanh Hoa province only knew it still existed shortly before the 2026-2027 V.League began, with a limited squad because there was not enough money to keep key players or sign new ones.

On top of that, before facing Becamex Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa were hit by a fresh financial worry. FIFA has ordered the club to pay more than 305,000 USD, roughly 8 billion Vietnamese dong, to Rimario Gordon after the Jamaican striker filed a claim with FIFA. If the matter is not settled within 45 days of receiving the document on September 16, Thanh Hoa will be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows. The complication is that the dispute dates back to the previous sponsor's tenure, while the club has since been handed over to a new sponsor.

Set the rights and wrongs aside and look at the consequences on the pitch. A club threatened with a three-window transfer ban cannot plan a squad for a cup run. It must keep its key players, rotate carefully, and prioritise the league absolutely. The 0-2 home defeat to Becamex Ho Chi Minh City is not the cause; it is the symptom.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai find themselves in a similar situation by a different route. The highland club face a difficult season in the survival race after two straight defeats at the start of the 2026-2027 V.League. This season's squad is weaker than last year's. Against a Hung Yen side with far more hunger, the team managed by Le Quang Trai lost quickly, and the worrying part is that they lost without any remaining capacity to resist.

Yet an early cup exit might actually be good for Hoang Anh Gia Lai, who need to pour every resource into the V.League, where they almost always find themselves fighting relegation. Football does not reward the sentimental; it rewards those who choose their battles.

The other two clubs, Hai Phong and Hong Linh Ha Tinh, have not started the 2026-2027 V.League badly, with one defeat and one win each. Their cup exits are therefore no surprise, and fit the same calculation of saving strength for the survival race.

Where I might be wrong

Now comes the part where I have to question myself. If everything above reads too neatly, that is the most dangerous moment, because an argument that is too tidy is usually one that has skipped the counter-evidence.

The counter-evidence lies in the very first-division clubs that won. Becamex Ho Chi Minh City were relegated but kept their squad and are now promotion contenders. Thep Can Tho have just moved from Quang Ninh to the Mekong Delta, carrying an entire system and a new ambition with them. Hung Yen and Phu Tho are both provincial projects with backing. These are not poor clubs playing cup football for fun. They are clubs with money and plans, sitting in a lower division for administrative and historical reasons.

In other words, the romantic small-town-beats-the-giant story hides an inverted financial reality: new money beating old money that has run dry. That is not a fairy tale; it is a balance sheet read aloud through a scoreline.

And I could be wrong elsewhere too. I argued that an early National Cup exit is good for Hoang Anh Gia Lai because it lets them focus on the league. But a club that learns to lose quietly will soon lose matches it is not allowed to lose. A winning culture is not something you switch on and off by fixture list. A club that walks out thinking "this one does not matter" carries that mindset into the next match, and by April nobody remembers which games they threw away.

I called Germany's elimination when the whole world was still dreaming. History belongs to those who speak first. But I also once said Argentina were finished because Messi was 35, and had to write a correction driven by pure honesty. A hot take that lands does not build a name. A hot take that fails, at the right moment, becomes a legend. So if these first-division clubs go deep in the 2026-2027 National Cup, do not be surprised. It may be that I have misread the story.

What I am willing to bet on

I stand by my position, but I will bet on checkable markers.

First, the 45-day deadline from the FIFA document dated September 16 falls around October 31, 2026. If Thanh Hoa do not settle the more than 305,000 USD owed to Rimario Gordon before that date, they will enter the winter transfer window empty-handed, and their survival race is effectively decided. This is a prediction with a date, a number and a consequence, so I cannot talk my way around it.

Second, Hoang Anh Gia Lai will be fighting relegation until the final rounds. A squad weaker than last season's, plus the loss of the Pleiku advantage while the pitch is re-laid, means every point won on a temporary ground costs more than usual.

Third, and this is what I want to stress most: the National Cup is facing a question of identity. If more and more V.League clubs treat the competition as a burden, there will come a point when it is nothing more than a playground for first-division sides and V.League clubs needing to keep their substitutes sharp. A cup that people deliberately lose is no longer a cup; it is paperwork with medals attached.

At 42, I still write as if every match were the last one I get to live. So when I watch four V.League clubs leave the National Cup in a single weekend, I do not see tragedy. I see a question that organisers, sponsors and the clubs themselves must answer before next season begins: if nobody wants to win a competition, what exactly is that competition still for?