Busan Is Not the Spotlight, But It Taught Me How to Keep the Rhythm

The auxiliary training ground of Busan IPark on an ordinary Tuesday morning has nothing special about it. No spectators, no television cameras, only the sound of studs scraping across the grass and the short, sharp shouts of the coaching staff. I stood at the corner of the pitch, as I have stood for seven years, and realized that this is where football is truly written — before it is retold on screen. The 2026 season of Vietnamese football is entering its decisive phase, but what concerns me is not the league table. I care about how young players from the PVF academy and the Nutifood JMG academy step into the professional environment, how they keep their breath steady amid the pressure of fan expectations and the brutality of a congested fixture schedule. There is a moment I will never forget: after a two-hour tactical session, a young midfielder sat alone on the substitute bench, staring at the empty pitch. I did not ask what he was thinking. I only knew that in that moment, he was asking himself whether he had enough strength to carry what people expected of him. From the perspective of someone who has followed Vietnamese football for more than two decades, I notice a quiet but profound shift in how clubs operate. No longer are training sessions monotonous and repetitive; they are tailored to each player, with GPS and heart rate data meticulously analyzed. But what troubles me is whether we are focusing so much on numbers that we forget that football, at its core, is a game of emotion and people. I remember the 2026 season, when I first sat in the mixed zone after the match between Vietnam U23 and Qatar U23 in Changzhou. Coach Park Hang-seo walked out with a cold expression but eyes shining with pride. He did not talk about tactics, did not talk about defensive counter-attacks. He only said: "The players trust each other. That is enough." That moment taught me that there are things that do not appear on the scoreboard, but they decide everything. Now, as Vietnamese football stands at the threshold of a new era with significant investments from private corporations and growing interest from international partners, I wonder whether we are losing something important. The stadium may be empty, but I can still hear the heartbeat of the match. It is the heartbeat of players fighting for their dreams, of coaches trying to build a sustainable philosophy amid the pressure of immediate results, and of fans who still come to the stadium whether it rains or shines. There is a story I often tell my young colleagues in Korea: in 2026, when the pandemic forced stadiums to close, I still came to the Busan IPark training ground every day. There were no matches, no spectators, but the players trained at the highest intensity. One day, I asked the captain why they maintained such seriousness when no one was watching. He looked at me and said: "Because we do not train for anyone to watch. We train for ourselves." The 2026 season taught me that silence is also a way of cheering. Vietnamese football is at a critical turning point. With the national team preparing for the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers and clubs investing heavily in youth academies, I see cautious optimism. But I also see potential pitfalls. Excessive expectations can crush young talents who are not ready. Chasing immediate results can make us forget about building long-term foundations. And relying too heavily on a few outstanding individuals can make the collective fragile. I remember standing at My Dinh Stadium during a match between Vietnam and Thailand. It was 2026, and the atmosphere was truly electric. More than forty thousand people sang the national anthem, and I felt the ground shaking beneath my feet. In that moment, I understood that football is not just a game. It is part of the national identity, a place where political, economic, and social differences are temporarily set aside to focus on a common goal. But after that match, when I returned to my hotel and wrote down my notes, I realized that what moved me most was not the victory. It was the moment a young player of the Vietnam national team — someone I had followed since his early days at the academy — sat alone in the corner of the dressing room, crying. He was not crying out of happiness. He was crying out of relief. Because the pressure that had weighed on him for months was finally released. A Korean cried for Vietnamese football. That is the common rhythm. In this context, I want to address an issue that few people mention: the imbalance between investment in the national team and investment in clubs. We often see large sums of money poured into hiring foreign coaches, organizing international friendlies, and upgrading national team facilities. But clubs, where players actually develop and mature, still struggle with tight budgets and limited infrastructure. This is a paradox I have witnessed many times in my career, from Vietnam to Korea. In Korea, I have seen how the K League builds a sustainable system where clubs do not only depend on owner money but also generate revenue from ticket sales, broadcasting rights, and commercial development. Of course, the Korean market is much larger than Vietnam's, and direct comparison would be unfair. But there are lessons we can learn, especially about building a sustainable football ecosystem rather than focusing only on short-term results. One of the things I am most passionate about over the years is the development of youth academies in Vietnam. From the PVF Academy with its modern facilities to the Nutifood JMG Academy with its systematic training philosophy, we are witnessing a new generation of players with better technique, better tactical thinking, and better physical condition than the previous generation. But the most important thing, in my opinion, is how these academies teach young players about the value of patience, discipline, and team spirit. I remember an afternoon at the PVF Academy, I sat watching a training session of the U15 group. The young players trained with incredible focus, but what impressed me was how their coach talked to them. Not with scolding or criticism, but with questions that encouraged them to think for themselves: "What do you think you should do in that situation?" "Where do you see your teammate?" This approach not only develops playing skills but also develops the ability to read the game and make decisions — qualities that modern football demands. But I also see challenges. One of them is the gap between age groups: when young players turn 18 and move up to the first team, they often struggle to adapt to the intensity and pressure of professional football. This is a problem not unique to Vietnam but shared by many other Asian countries. I have witnessed many promising young talents being wasted simply because there is no long-term development plan for them after they leave the academy. In Korea, I have seen how clubs like Busan IPark handle this issue. They have a loan system that sends young players to lower-division clubs to gain real match experience while maintaining regular monitoring and evaluation. This is a model that I think Vietnamese football can learn from, especially in the context of the V.League becoming increasingly competitive and fierce. Another issue I want to address is the role of media in shaping fan expectations. I have witnessed many cases where a young player is overhyped after a few good matches, creating enormous pressure that he cannot withstand. Conversely, I have also seen players criticized mercilessly after a few bad matches, causing them to lose confidence and never reach their full potential. As a media professional, I wonder whether we are doing our job properly. Not every match has spectators. But every match has someone keeping the rhythm. Those are the coaches working silently in the shadows, the physiotherapists caring for every injury, the team managers worrying about every meal and every hour of sleep of the players. These are the people we never see on television, but they are the ones who truly make the difference. I remember visiting a youth training center in central Vietnam. The facilities were very basic, but I saw children training with burning passion. They did not have branded football boots, did not have natural grass pitches, but they had a fierce belief that football could change their lives. In that moment, I realized that football does not need modern stadiums or massive investments. Football needs belief, perseverance, and people who dare to dream. As I write these lines, the Vietnam U23 team is preparing for an important tournament in Southeast Asia. I do not know what the result will be, and I do not want to make predictions. But I know that, whatever the result, those young players will learn something valuable about themselves, about resilience, and about the meaning of wearing the red jersey with the yellow star. From Busan to the World Cup, I have learned that football does not lie. Results can be influenced by luck, referees, or unforeseen factors. But how a team operates, how players treat each other, how they respond to adversity — these things cannot be faked. And these are what truly determine long-term success. I end this article not with a conclusion or advice, but with a question: What kind of football do we want to build? A football that only knows immediate results, or a football that can develop sustainably across generations? The answer, I believe, lies in how we treat young players today, how we build our training systems, and how we define success. Every player has their own rhythm. I am just looking for where it begins.