Hanoi FC 1-4 SLNA: Hang Day Falls Silent, and a Season Not Yet Begun Hears the Alarm Bell

Four in the morning in Busan, I sat in front of the screen with a coffee that had gone cold hours ago. On the other side of the hemisphere, Hang Day Stadium had just emptied. It was not an ordinary defeat. A 1-4 loss at home, against SLNA, the club people still call by the two words 'Nghe land' with a tone that is part respect and part wariness. I replayed the final minutes of the video. The stands were silent. Only the announcement speaker and the footsteps of dozens of people walking quietly toward the exits remained. One frame was enough to tell an entire season.

The Ulsan dawn never lies. But the dawn at Hang Day this morning, alas, spoke a truth that nobody at Hanoi FC wanted to hear.

I have followed the V-League since the days when people had to tune old radios to hear football. Forty-five years in this profession, and I learned one thing: a heavy defeat sometimes says little about the quality of the losing team. It only says that something within the system has gone out of alignment. And at a club like Hanoi FC, a small misalignment is enough to draw every eye.

I did not watch this match to find someone guilty. I watched to understand why a club that has long been a benchmark of Vietnamese football could end up bottom of the table after two rounds, with two defeats, two goals scored and seven conceded. A goal difference of minus five. That is not a scratch. That is a tear.

There are phone calls that last only three minutes but change an entire summer. In Vietnam last night, there were probably such calls. From the boardroom, from the home of a loyal fan, from the dressing room where Harry Kewell had just told his players things he did not want to share with the press. I did not hear the content. But I know that silence sometimes says more than a press conference.

And that is why I chose to write this piece before sunrise. The background: a stadium that is no longer a fortress. Before talking about four conceded goals, let us talk about the foundation behind them. Hanoi FC entered Round 2 of the V-League 2026-2027 with a heavy burden. They lost the opening match. They had a new signing, Adam Taggart, expected to become the spearhead up front. They had key players like Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Hai Long, seen as the main creative sources. And they had a coach, Harry Kewell, who only months earlier had been introduced as a breath of fresh air, a former star arriving to change the mindset.

Then the match happened. SLNA did not bring a squad of stars to Hang Day. They came with what people still call by an emblematic name: Nghe football. Youth combined with the spirit of veterans. An old formula, but a formula verified across generations. And last night, it ran almost perfectly.

I noticed a detail many may have missed. Before the match, when asked about their plan, SLNA stated almost their entire idea openly. They would let Hanoi hold the ball. They would sit deep, slow the tempo, and wait for counterattacking chances. Nguyen Van Sy Son made it clear: the task was to force Hanoi's creative players wide and stop them cutting inside. In other words, SLNA did not hide their hand. They handed their opponent a blueprint and still executed it successfully.

To me, that is more worrying than the goals conceded. A good team can be beaten by a better opponent. But a team beaten by a plan that was announced in advance has a problem that is not about the opponent. The problem is within itself.

To understand why, I need to recall a memory. After the defeat to Mexico at the 2026 World Cup, Son Heung-min was harshly criticized by an entire online community. I was in Russia that day, reading thousands of comments, and I realized something few noticed at the time: the crowd was disappointed by expectation, not by performance. Son ran more than 11 km that match, the most in the team. But the number a heartbroken fan sees is not the distance. It is the scoreline.

Last night at Hang Day, the story was somewhat similar, though the outcome differed. A team bottom of the table after two rounds. An attack with recognizable names. A new signing. And a result that forces everyone to reconsider how they see things.

This is where I must state my position clearly, because I know some will be upset that I do not immediately label someone a culprit. I am not the kind of writer who pleases the crowd. If I did, I would betray the very thing I believe in: verify before concluding, and conclude only after seeing the whole picture.

So I will not open with the word 'shock.' I will open with a quote. A quote from Kewell himself after the match. He said his team had 'lost its system.' Those words, to me, matter more than any number.

Core: dissecting a collapse through the eyes of an observer. The first thing to understand is that SLNA did not win by luck. They won with a plan executed down to the last detail, and Hanoi FC opened the door for them. To reconstruct the match for those who did not watch, I will proceed the way I analyze a transfer: not by listening to accounts, but by arranging events in a causal sequence.

In the 35th minute, SLNA opened the scoring. That was the moment everything began to tilt. But according to what Kewell himself admitted, before that, Hanoi had chances. They controlled the ball, they pressed forward, and Adam Taggart was the one creating most of the dangerous situations. Taggart moved, found space, and produced shots. But the ball did not go in.

This is a detail I want to emphasize. The ball did not go in early, and it went into their own net in the 35th minute. Between those two events lies a silence that anyone who has played football knows: the silence of doubt. When a team plays well but does not score, its defense begins to feel uneasy. Shorter passes. Positions higher than planned. And so the gaps open.

SLNA did not need to do anything complicated. They only needed to wait. After taking the lead, SLNA sat even deeper. They let Hanoi push up. They slowed the match to the lowest possible tempo, breaking the rhythm of an attack that needs continuity to function. And every time they won the ball, they counterattacked along a pre-drawn path.

Hanoi's three subsequent goals conceded did not come from random collapse. They came from a script SLNA had prepared. Hanoi pushed forward to equalize, exposed their flanks, and were punished. Among those conceded goals were different situations. There was a direct counterattack. There was a moment when Hanoi's defense lost organization so badly that no one kept their man. And there was a goal from the other side of the pitch in the most painful way for a player: Christie Cyrus scored an own goal.

I do not want to dwell too long on the own goal. For a defender, the moment the ball goes into your own net is a moment no one wants to remember. I have seen many good defenders endure that moment, and I know it haunts them longer than people think. But that moment is also a marker. When a defender has to make a challenge in such a passive state, it means the defensive system above him had already broken before the individual had to decide.

In other words, the own goal is a symptom, not the disease. The disease lies elsewhere. The disease lies in the transition structure, and in Hanoi FC having no alternative when their strengths are correctly blocked.

Let us talk about two names: Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Hai Long. These are considered the brains of Hanoi's attack. And according to what Van Sy Son revealed, SLNA spent the entire week preparing for exactly these two. They forced Hen and Long wide. They did not let them cut inside. They forced these two players into positions where their value was significantly reduced.

And what happens when the main creative source is neutralized? If a team has many routes to goal, it switches to another. If it has a striker who can hold up play, it plays long. If it has good aerial players, it exploits set pieces. But last night, Hanoi could not do those things. They kept trying the road that had been blocked. And the harder they tried, the more exposed they became.

I remember a veteran coach once telling me: 'A strong team is not the one that plays well when everything goes its way. A strong team is the one that knows what to do when things do not.' Last night, Hanoi FC had not yet answered that question.

But wait. Before continuing, I must say something I consider fair. There is a factor that both the original article and public opinion mentioned, but no one analyzed sufficiently: the fatigue of players returning from the national team after the 2026 ASEAN Cup.

Core (continued): about tiredness and an excuse that is not an excuse. The empty summer of 2026, when Kim Min-jae canceled a contract, and football stood still for us to reflect. I bring up that old story because I learned a lesson from it: sometimes what is called an 'excuse' is in fact the truth, and the only reason it becomes an excuse is that people do not want to face a simpler truth.

Kewell said he may have placed too many demands on his players, that perhaps he needs to let them rest more. Many will read this and think: more blame-shifting. But I read it differently. In modern football, especially in Southeast Asia, international tournaments and domestic leagues are packed back-to-back, creating a paradox: the best players must play match after match at the highest level, while the fitness support system cannot keep up. Big clubs tend to concentrate good players, and precisely because of that they suffer the most when the schedule is dense.

I have recorded a few figures over my career. Players returning after a multi-week international tournament often need two to three weeks to regain their best mental state, even if their body may have recovered. That mental state is exactly what clubs like Hanoi FC depend on heavily, because they play through structure and through the continuity of ideas. This may partly explain why Hanoi collapsed in the second half. It was not just about being behind. It was about not having enough resources to respond after falling behind.

But I will not use this as an excuse. Because if you let a match depend entirely on whether the squad is fresh, then you already have a depth problem. A big club must survive even when its best people are tired. And that is why I want to say something few are willing to say: Hanoi FC's problem last night was not fitness. Fitness was only the wind. The boat already had a hole in its hull.

Core (continued): lessons from Van Sy Son, and the art of a plan even after it is stated aloud. I always believe football systems are living organisms. Reading a match is not just reading numbers; it is reading its breathing. SLNA's breathing last night was very steady. They did not breathe deeply. They breathed slowly. They accepted living with little of the ball. And they saved every breath for the moment of explosion.

Van Sy Son said the goal was to force Hanoi wide and stop them cutting inside. I read that sentence many times. It does not merely describe a defensive task. It describes a philosophy: make the opponent play where they do not want to, and strip away their sense of control. When a team loses its sense of control, it starts making mistakes. Not technical mistakes. Decision mistakes. Longer passes, pointless advances, arguments on the pitch. That is when the match is decided mentally, even before the scoreline widens.

I realized this long ago, back when I worked at local radio stations. People often called me overly cautious because I always wanted multiple sources for a piece of information. But it was that caution that taught me that in football, what decides is often not the event. What decides is how people prepare for the event. SLNA prepared better.

Now let us return to Hanoi FC. If I were an analyst sitting in the technical meeting room, I would ask four questions. First, when Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Hai Long were forced wide, who created the alternative chances? Last night, the answer was: no one. Second, when the opponent sits deep, does my team have a way to break a packed defense? Set pieces, long balls, off-ball movement. Last night, those were largely absent from Hanoi's attacks. Third, when conceding first, how do I keep my defensive structure? Last night, Hanoi opened up. They exposed gaps that SLNA needed only one pass to exploit. Fourth, and most important: does my team still believe in its own plan when the plan is not producing results? Kewell's answer, when he said 'we lost our system,' was an honest answer and also a worrying one.

An honest coach will admit this. But a mature team should not depend on the coach's honesty after the match to understand where it went wrong. I rewatched Kewell's answer several times. He did not blame the referee. He did not blame an individual. He took responsibility. And he protected the dressing room by keeping the content of his speech private. As a human reaction, I can understand it. Technically, it raises a question: is it because there was nothing specific to fix that he could only speak of the system?

I do not know the answer. And I will not give myself the right to know. There are things I believe after forty-five years of writing about football: that what a coach says after a heavy defeat often contains a truth the club's internal system does not yet want to make public. And that a responsible writer is one who reads that truth, but not to tell the world, but to pose the right question to those who can answer.

Core (continued): Adam Taggart and the arithmetic of a new signing. Fans see a contract; I see the sleepless nights behind it. Adam Taggart arrived at Hanoi FC as one of the focuses of the transfer window. He is the kind of striker Southeast Asian football often seeks: intelligent movement, good positioning, capable of finishing with both feet.

Last night, Taggart created most of Hanoi FC's chances. He moved into the space between center-backs and full-backs. He produced shots that, according to Kewell, should have been goals. But the ball did not go in. In football, a striker who does not score in a heavy defeat often receives the harshest criticism. That is a cruel reality. But I want to see it differently.

A striker depends on the supply of the ball. If his midfield is blocked, if the creators are forced wide, then even the best striker can only do so much. In last night's match, Taggart was not silent. He was the most active player in the attack. It was just that he alone could not create chances and finish them.

I remember a principle I have written in many transfer analyses: a new signing is not judged by the first match, nor by the second. He is judged by the fifth and sixth, when enough data exists to know whether he fits the system. With Taggart, the positive sign is that he created chances even while Hanoi's attack was stuck. That suggests he is not a center-forward who only waits in the box. He knows how to find space. But if Hanoi keeps playing like last night, then by the tenth match, Taggart's goal tally will still be an open question not because he is poor, but because the system does not feed him.

This is what I consider the core of the transfer problem in the V-League: clubs often buy strikers, but do not buy the system that feeds strikers. They sign a goalscorer, but do not sign the people who create chances for him. And so the striker becomes a scapegoat. I have seen this in many places, not only Vietnam. It happens in Korea. It happens in Japan. It happens in Europe, at clubs that are astonished to discover that a player who scored thirty goals in his old league cannot score ten in the new one, even though he is not worse.

This is where I want to warn Hanoi FC fans. If Taggart continues to be fielded while the club does not change its style, pressure will fall on him. And that will be unjust. What needs fixing is the system, not the person.

Core (continued): four goals conceded and a map of cracks. I want to offer a holistic view of Hanoi FC's four conceded goals last night, not to point out who is guilty, but to find a pattern. The first goal, in the 35th minute, was the opener. For SLNA, this was the most important goal. Because once the visitors led, they could sit deep and play the way they wanted. This goal shifted the match from a state where SLNA had to defend to a state where SLNA could control the tempo.

The second goal came after Hanoi pushed forward to equalize. This was a textbook counterattack: Hanoi lost the ball in midfield, the defense lost organization in an instant, and SLNA exploited the gap any counterattacking team would exploit. The third goal bore the mark of disintegration. When a team is two goals down, the second half becomes a psychological battle more than a match. Hanoi needed to recover, but they had lost structure. They exposed gaps that SLNA did not need to be especially clever to notice. The fourth goal, marked by Christie Cyrus's own goal. But as I said, this goal's cause lay in the system above. When pressure is high, defenders are placed in situations where their decisions become ambiguous. That is when individual errors are born. And I repeat: a defender who scores an own goal is not the sole person responsible. The responsibility belongs to the collective that placed him in that situation.

The common pattern of all four goals: SLNA did not need to do anything complicated. They only needed to wait. And Hanoi opened the door for them. Now let us talk about what I consider the most pivotal tactical factor, and also what other V-League clubs will study: how to deal with Hanoi FC.

I have a hypothesis I believe is correct, though I do not have the data to fully prove it. Other clubs will watch the video of this match, and they will realize that by simply forcing Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Hai Long wide, by simply waiting for Hanoi to push up, they can score. This is a repeatable formula. And this is why this defeat is not just a lesson of one match, but a lesson that can affect an entire season.

Once again, I must be clear: I do not mean to blame these two players. They are good players, but no one can play well when marked correctly. This is a system problem, not an individual one. And the system is the coach's responsibility.

Core (continued): the press conference twenty-five minutes late and what it says. There is a detail in this match that the media has mentioned a lot, and I think it deserves mention, but not in the way many are mentioning it. Kewell arrived at the press conference twenty-five minutes late. Many will read this and think: he is shaken. He is tense. He is panicking.

I do not think so. Twenty-five minutes is enough time for a coach to talk to his players after a heavy defeat. It is enough time to decide whether to make the content of that talk public or keep it in the dressing room. It is enough time for a man to remind himself that he must stand before the press and speak about something painful. In my profession, I have met many people who arrived late to a press conference. Some arrived late out of panic. Some out of anger. Some because they had spent time on something more important than answering reporters' questions.

I do not know where Kewell's case falls. But I know one thing: those twenty-five minutes should not be used as evidence of pressure. Pressure does not lie in the moment a person enters the press room. Pressure lies in the moment a person leaves it. And in Kewell's case, the truly notable moment is not last night. It is the next round.

Background: the bottom team and the shadow of last season. This is the part I think every Hanoi FC fan needs to read carefully. Last season, Hanoi FC started badly. Two draws and two losses. That run of form contributed to coach Makoto Teguramori's departure. That story is too recent for anyone to forget. This season, after two rounds, Hanoi are bottom with zero points. Goal difference is minus five. On forums and social media, comments have begun to appear. Not many. But enough to recognize a rising wave.

I once wrote that fans see a table, while I see the sleepless nights behind it. A table after two rounds does not decide a season's fate. But it says something important: that a collective memory is being reactivated. That collective memory is more dangerous than people think. In football, a team can lose because the opponent is stronger. But a team collapses because it remembers it once collapsed. And at Hanoi FC, that memory is coming back to life round by round.

I want to add something I consider important, drawn from my own experience. Throughout my career, I have witnessed many crises at big clubs. And I learned that crises do not begin with defeats. They begin with conversations in the meeting room. With questions like 'should we still believe in the person sitting in the coaching chair?' Such conversations always begin before results turn bad. They begin with defeats that should have had a clear answer. Last night, the answer was not clear.

Contrarian: what the media is getting right and what it is overdoing. This is where I allow myself to disagree with some readers, and even some colleagues. After a defeat like this, the media tends to create two products. The first is a piece criticizing the coach. The second is a piece criticizing the players. And both tend to use the word 'crisis' as a label.

I understand why. The regular season is a long-distance race, but the media lives match by match. That is a structural contradiction I have never seen resolved anywhere. But precisely because I understand this, I want to say something I believe is true. 'Crisis' is not the right word.

Two rounds. That is the sample size of last night. Two rounds are not enough to conclude that a team has declined, nor that a strategy has collapsed. What we know for certain is: Hanoi FC played poorly. But what we do not yet know is: can they fix it, and how long will it take?

Fans really do not need labels. They need observations that can be verified. And in this case, there are a few such observations. First: Hanoi's defensive system loses organization against teams that counterattack proactively. This is an observation with evidence, and it matters more than any criticism. Second: Hanoi's attack depends on a very small number of creative players. This is an observation verifiable by looking at who creates the most dangerous chances in recent matches. Third: some players returning from the national team show signs of overload. This is an observation that needs more data to confirm, but it has a basis.

To me, these three observations are worth more than any sensational headline. And this is why I chose to write this piece slowly, even though it is not the kind of article that spreads easily. I believe a discerning reader does not need me to shout that their club is in danger. They already know from the table. What they need is someone to show them why.

Contrarian (continued): what I myself learned after this match. I must admit one thing: there are times, during an evening of watching a match, when I feel I have become too accustomed to seeing everything through the lens of verification. I tend to want to wait. Wait for more information. Wait for more data. Wait to see if the situation changes. But last night, as I watched the stands of Hang Day empty, I realized there is a kind of truth that needs no further data to confirm. The truth that the fans are hurting. The truth that a club is stuck. The truth that someone inside the club must do something.

This is not a tactical observation. This is an observation about people. And in my profession, both kinds of observation matter. Kim Min-jae can cancel a contract, but no one can cancel the trust I placed in him. I repeat that sentence because it relates to what I want to say: in football, the most important thing is trust. From coach to player. From player to club. From club to fans. And when a team concedes three goals after controlling the game, the question of trust becomes painfully acute.

I do not believe Kewell lost trust. I do not believe the players lost trust. But I believe that last night, a small crack appeared. And small cracks, if not addressed, can become a chasm.

Contrarian angle: maybe things are not as bad as they look. I will say this even knowing some will object. The 1-4 result does not fully reflect the match. In the first half, up to the 35th minute, Hanoi FC did not play badly. They controlled the ball. They created chances. If Adam Taggart had converted one of those chances, the match could have gone in a completely different direction. In football, the distance between a win and a heavy defeat is sometimes one shot in the twentieth minute.

I want to warn fans about an analytical trap that even journalists sometimes fall into. That is the trap of the scoreline. A match can end with a four-goal margin even when the two teams are not four goals apart in class. Goals come from different situations, and some of them may not be reproducible. What I mean is: SLNA's counterattacking efficiency last night was effective, but effective does not mean repeatable. In later matches, if they face slower teams that defend well, such counterattacks will be harder to produce.

As for Hanoi FC, a win in the next round could completely change the mental landscape. This is not a promise. It is a law of football: big teams often revive when they see themselves in a win. But I do not want to end with encouragement. I want to end with a question.

Contrarian angle (continued): three things I will monitor. To make this piece useful to fans, I offer three things I will monitor in the coming rounds. This is not a prediction. These are signals. First signal: Kewell's starting lineup in Round 3. If several players just back from the national team are rested, that will indicate Kewell is adjusting to protect fitness. If all of them still start, that will indicate Kewell does not want to change, or cannot. Second signal: Hanoi's defensive structure after conceding. If they collapse again after the first goal, that will be evidence that the problem is systemic, not luck. Third signal: how SLNA sustain form against different opponents. If they keep winning through low-block counterattacking, that will signal the V-League is witnessing the maturation of a new playing school.

These three signals do not decide a season's fate. But they give me data to keep tracking, and give fans a basis to evaluate their club.

Background: the V-League 2026-2027 and a race taking shape. This is where I need to step outside the match and look at the big picture. The V-League 2026-2027 is only two rounds old, but the table already shows some interesting signals. At the top, two teams have six points and a plus-four goal difference: SLNA and Ninh Binh. However, Ninh Binh has scored six goals, one more than SLNA, so they are likely ranked higher. At the bottom, Hanoi FC sit last with two defeats, two goals scored, seven conceded and a minus-five goal difference.

This picture, if viewed against last season, would be shocking. Hanoi FC has long been one of the biggest clubs in Vietnamese football. Being bottom after two rounds is a position completely unsuited to their stature. But football is like that. Stature does not score goals. Only goals score goals.

I notice something interesting from this table. The V-League is witnessing the rise of some clubs I call 'the unexpected ones.' SLNA with an old formula that works. Provincial clubs playing with cohesion and spirit. This is a positive signal for Vietnamese football, because it shows the league no longer revolves around two or three giants. Of course, two rounds are not enough to conclude. A provincial club can win the first two matches and fall back when winter comes. But the early signal is worth noting. And I want to say this: football is most beautiful when the unexpected ones dare to dream. If SLNA maintain this form, they could become one of the most interesting stories of the season.

Background (continued): when the domestic and international calendars collide. There is a topic I consider more important than last night's match, and it is often overlooked. That is the relationship between the domestic calendar and the international calendar. The 2026 ASEAN Cup has ended, but its echoes linger. Players return to their clubs with uneven physical conditions. Some played many minutes for the national team. Some must re-adapt to the club system. And some, though they do not say it, are still mentally unrested.

In my analysis, I call this phenomenon the 'FIFA virus,' an international term for the negative impact of national-team windows on club form. In Vietnam, this phenomenon may be even more pronounced, because the domestic league often lacks enough rest time for players to fully recover. For Hanoi FC, a club with many national-team players, this is a major challenge. Kewell said he may have placed too many demands. This is a statement I value, because it shows he is questioning himself. But I still want to emphasize what I said earlier: fitness is not a sufficient explanation. If players are tired, the coach's job is to rotate the squad, change the style of play, and adjust the match plan. These are matters of the coaching staff's responsibility, not the players'.

I have seen many big clubs fall because they did not rotate in time. And I have also seen many clubs rotate too early and lose stability. This is a balancing act that even top coaches take years to solve. For Kewell, this will be one of the most important tests of his time at Hanoi FC. Not because of last night's match, but because of what comes after.

My experience: judging a team over a cycle, not a single match. I recount the story of Son Heung-min in 2026 to make this point. After the defeat to Mexico, Son was heavily criticized. But Son proved he is a great player not because he never played poorly, but because he knows how to come back after playing poorly. In football, what matters is not whether you fall. What matters is how you get up, and how long it takes.

For Hanoi FC, what matters is not last night's defeat. What matters is their response over the next three to five matches. If they win two of the next three, the crisis story disappears. If they keep losing, the story becomes a storm. I remember a time when I worked at the radio station, a veteran coach told me: 'In Vietnam, people judge a coach after three matches. Not after three years.' That sentence made me think a lot. It is right in some sense. But it also reveals a problem: Vietnamese football lacks patience. Patience does not mean tolerating poor results. Patience means understanding that a process takes time. And for a club in transition like Hanoi FC, patience is precious.

Takeaway: a domino is tilting, and a question for the next round. So what happens next? I cannot predict the result of a football match. But I can predict the questions that will be asked. First question: can Kewell keep his job if Hanoi FC do not win in the next two rounds? This is a question I cannot answer, but I know it is being asked in some meeting rooms. Second question: is Adam Taggart Hanoi's goalscorer or not? This is a question whose answer I think will become clear in three to five matches, when he has enough time to adapt to the league and new teammates. Third question: what can other V-League clubs learn from this match? If they learn how to neutralize Do Hoang Hen and Nguyen Hai Long, Hanoi FC must find a backup plan before it is too late.

These three questions are not new. They are questions any big club must face when a season starts poorly. What is different at Hanoi FC is the scale of the club, and the pressure that comes with that scale. At an ordinary club, two early defeats may be just a slow start. At a big club like Hanoi FC, two early defeats are a media crisis. Modern football runs on money, but a dawn phone call runs on trust. And trust is what Hanoi FC needs to rebuild, not with the fans, but with itself.

Conclusion: a belief not easily broken. At 61, I still pick up the phone at 4 a.m., because football does not call to say good night. Last night, I stayed up to watch Hanoi FC lose 1-4 to SLNA. And this morning, I write this not to convict anyone, but to remind that football is a long journey. On that journey, there are bad days. There are defeats that cannot be explained. There are moments when everything seems to collapse. But there are also nights when a falling team suddenly stands up. And it is precisely those nights that make us love football.

I do not know what will come to Hanoi FC this season. But I know one thing: a team does not die from one defeat. It only dies when it stops believing in itself. And if anyone at Hang Day still holds that belief, then the season is not over. The Ulsan dawn never lies. And I believe the dawn at Hang Day is the same.

Now, let me tell you a small story, one I kept in my heart throughout this piece, and only reveal here. One night, many years ago, I received a call at two in the morning. The person on the other end was an old coach of mine. He had just lost a match his team led by three goals in the first half, only to be pegged back in the second. He asked me a question I never forgot. 'Do you think I should continue?'

I did not answer immediately. I asked him back: 'What do you think caused your team to collapse?' He was silent for a long time. Then he said: 'I think I believed too much in my plan.' That is the answer I have kept ever since. And it is also the answer I think Hanoi FC needs to ask itself, not about Kewell, but about itself.

A team that believes too much in one plan can collapse when that plan is broken. A strong team is one that has many plans, and knows when to change. Last night, Hanoi FC did not yet show that it has many plans. That is not just a tactical problem. That is a problem of identity. But identity can be rebuilt. And a big club like Hanoi FC has enough resources to do so. The only question is: where will they start, and when? The next round will give us the first answer. I will sit in front of the screen as always. And I will wait. Because football, at 61, is still the thing that makes me wake up at four in the morning. And because I believe that behind every defeat, there is always a chance to come back. That is my belief. And that is why I write.