After the 2026 ASEAN Cup: V-League owes Vietnamese football a real generation of No. 9s

After Vietnam's ASEAN Cup 2026 triumph, there was much celebration across the country. Nguyen Xuan Son, the naturalized striker, scored seven goals and became the hero of the tournament. But his success highlighted a deeper problem: Vietnamese football still does not produce enough home-grown No. 9 strikers. Youth academies like PVF in Hung Yen have produced excellent midfielders and wingers. Yet the central striker position is almost always reserved for foreign players. This happens because V-League clubs demand immediate goals. They do not have the patience to develop an 18-year-old striker who might struggle in his first two seasons. As a result, talented local players are pushed to the wings or into midfield, where mistakes are more forgiven. Local academies train creative midfielders but rarely teach the specific craft of a penalty-area striker: positioning, shielding, timing, and the mental strength to keep shooting after missed chances. The naturalization route is not a long-term answer. Japan faced a similar issue in the 1990s, but kept investing in school football and domestic striker development. Successful national teams are built on systems, not on one imported center-forward. Vietnamese football needs a structural push, such as incentives for clubs to play young domestic players in attacking positions. The author remembers watching a 15-year-old boy at PVF practicing penalties alone every morning because his coach said he was too small to be a striker. That boy believes in his dream. The real question is whether the V-League will have the courage to invest in that belief, or simply search for another Brazilian forward from abroad.