Vietnamese Football 2026: From Numbers to People - 34 Years of Following and Lessons Never Grown Old

This article is written by Jung Ji-woo - a women's sports presenter, women's football expert with 34 years of experience in Incheon, South Korea.

Throughout my 34-year journey following football, I learned a simple yet painful lesson: every number on the statistics board hides a person waiting to be called by name. That is not a poetic phrase to end an interview with, but a reality I have witnessed thousands of times in locker rooms, on team buses, and in late-night conversations with young players standing at the threshold of their careers.

In 2026, when I started the WK League analysis program on a digital platform, I discovered a reserve striker named Choi Yu-ri from Incheon Hyundai Steel Red Angels. She only played 214 minutes throughout the season - a seemingly meaningless number. But when I dug deeper into the data, her xG was 3.2 - the highest on the team. What does that mean? It means that in the few minutes she was given the opportunity, Choi Yu-ri created better chances than any other teammate. A month after my analysis article, she was given a starting spot in the final match of the season and scored 2 goals, helping the team win the championship. That is the power of seeing the person behind the numbers.

And that is why I wrote this article - not to analyze a specific match, not to predict the results of an upcoming tournament, but to share what I have learned after 34 years standing in the women's sports corridor, where the cheers are fewer but the meaning runs deeper.

The women's sports corridor is not just about victories, but about doors slowly opening for the next generations.

When I started my career in 2026 from local radio stations, women's football in South Korea almost did not exist in the public eye. The WK League had not been established. Female players had to work part-time and play football in the evenings. The first international tournament I followed was the 2026 Asian Women's Championship, where the South Korean national team reached the semi-finals - a feat that seemed great at the time but now, looking back, I clearly see the shortcomings in tactics, fitness, and especially media attention.

I remember a match in 2026, when I was still a young reporter for a local television station. My local women's football team played on a patchwork pitch, lacking proper lighting and with only about 30 spectators. After the match, I approached a young striker and asked about her emotions. She said: "I don't know if anyone is watching, but I still run as if the whole world is following." That sentence has followed me for 26 years and has become a guiding principle for how I tell stories about women's sports.

Football does not need spectators to heal - it is itself a healing medicine for the players themselves.

But the truth is, without spectators, these stories would not be told. And no one tells them better than those who have lived in the darkness of absence.

In 2026, I had the opportunity to be a commentator for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in France. That was the first major tournament I worked with international media, and I made a mistake I will never forget: I mispronounced striker Ellie Brazil's name 3 times in the first half of the South Korea vs England match. I received a barrage of criticism, not only from the audience but also from colleagues. That night, I sat in my hotel room in Rennes and wondered: if I cannot correctly pronounce a player's name, how can I correctly tell her story?

Mispronounce a name once, remember it for a lifetime. That is the lesson I paid for with my own shame.

I spent the next 2 weeks reviewing all footage from the tournament, learning the pronunciations of all 352 players from 16 countries. I built a note-taking system about pronunciation, jersey numbers, and biographies of each person. Since then, I have never accepted carelessness about names in any of my articles. Because mispronouncing a name is a wound, and correcting the name is an act of healing.

But the biggest lesson came in 2026, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused all tournaments to pause. I lost my familiar work rhythm, lying still in my apartment in Incheon for 3 weeks unable to write a single line. I was emotionally exhausted, not because I lacked information but because I lacked meaning. One evening, I decided to contact Ji So-yun, the legendary midfielder who once played for Chelsea, via video call. She shared that at age 14, she had to leave her family to train alone at the national training center, hundreds of kilometers from her parents, in a city where she knew no one. "Many nights I cried alone in the dormitory," she said, "but the next morning I still went to the training ground, because football is all I have."

Hearing that story, tears welled up in my eyes. Not because of sympathy, but because of understanding. At 50 years old, I understand that the football field has no borders, but hearts have coordinates. And sometimes, those who are fighting in the darkness are the ones who best understand the value of light.

That conversation brought me back to my passion. Not the passion for data analysis or tactics, but the passion for storytelling - telling stories about people waiting to be called by their correct names.

In 2026, at the Tokyo Olympics, I was in charge of the women's football segment for a national television station. The South Korean national team under coach Colin Bell earned only 1 point from 3 matches, a result many called a failure. But when I analyzed the data, I discovered something else: their PPDA was 8.6 - the lowest in the tournament, showing an extremely aggressive pressing system despite being physically inferior to European teams. They did not lose because of lack of determination, but because of lack of resources. That is the disparity between ambition and reality that I have witnessed throughout 34 years in women's sports.

I wrote the article 'Defeat Has Meaning' analyzing this issue. The article reached 250,000 views, the most in my career. Not because I wrote well, but because I showed readers what they could not see: that a football team can lose a match but win in terms of progress, that failure is not the end but a stepping stone for the next generations.

The lesson from Tokyo Olympics is not just for South Korean football. It is a lesson for all of Asian women's sports - where we are trying to catch up with the world but lack infrastructure, lack investment, and especially lack media attention.

And that is why I want to talk about Vietnamese football in this article. Not because I am an expert on Vietnamese football - I admit I do not have deep expertise in the V.League or Vietnam national team like I do with the WK League. But because I see concerning similarities between the journey of South Korean women's football and Vietnamese women's football, and I believe my experience can provide a useful perspective.

Vietnamese women's football has made significant progress in recent years. The Vietnam women's national team has participated in the AFC Women's Asian Cup and had performances worth acknowledging. Players like Nguyen Thi Tuyet Dung, Nguyen Thi Xuan, or younger faces have started being mentioned in international locker rooms. But what I observe is: like South Korea 20 years ago, Vietnamese women's football is facing challenges that I have witnessed and tried to change.

The first challenge is the lack of data. When I started analyzing the WK League in 2026, I had to build a database from scratch because there was no reliable information source. Similarly, Vietnamese women's football lacks a professional statistical system that can help coaches, analysts, and media better understand player development. Metrics like xG, PPDA, pass completion rate, number of tackles - all need to be systematically collected and widely shared.

I am not asking for a perfect system immediately. I am just asking for a start. And I believe that with the development of technology and the increasing interest of young Vietnamese people in sports, women's football can build its data foundation in the next 5 to 10 years.

The second challenge is the issue of personal identification. Throughout my career, I have witnessed countless times when female players were called "player number 7" or "female striker" instead of being addressed by their correct names. That is not just media carelessness - it is a cultural attitude that considers women's sports secondary, not worth the effort to remember names.

I have made mistakes, and I am not afraid to admit it. Back in 2026, I mispronounced Ellie Brazil's name 3 times in an international match. That was a mistake I paid for with shame and 2 weeks of non-stop work to fix. But I learned that: mispronouncing a name is a wound, but being able to correct it is more precious. Not because I want to boast about my correction, but because I want to show that everyone can make mistakes, and what matters is that this woman is called by her correct name from now on.

For Vietnamese women's football, I encourage journalists, commentators, and fans to start by learning the full names of players. Not just names, but also hometowns, birthdays, favorite positions, and the stories behind those people. That is how we transform "player number 7" into an individual, transform statistics into people.

The third challenge, and perhaps the biggest, is the lack of a psychological support network. I have shared about the video call with Ji So-yun in 2026, when she shared about her lonely childhood at the training center. But that story does not have a sad ending. The story ends with me realizing: football does not need spectators to heal, but football needs people who care to be seen.

Young female players, especially those who have to leave home at an early age, need a support network beyond the football pitch. They need people who listen to them when they are tired, people who encourage them when they fail, and people who remind them that their value is not only in competitive results.

In the context of Vietnam, where family and social pressure on women is still significant, I believe building a psychological support system for female athletes is extremely necessary. Not as an investment to improve results, but as a moral duty to those who are sacrificing their childhood and normal lives to pursue their dreams.

But I also want to talk about the positives. Vietnamese women's football is showing promising signs. Public interest is gradually increasing, domestic tournaments are getting more attention, and a generation of young players is showing outstanding potential.

I am particularly impressed by how some Vietnamese clubs are investing in infrastructure for women's football. Although the scale cannot yet compare with top Asian leagues, these are steps in the right direction. And I believe that with patience and correct investment, Vietnamese women's football can become one of the strong teams in the region within 10 to 15 years.

Of course, for that to happen, structural changes are needed. And this is where I want to offer a counter-intuitive perspective - a perspective that took me many years to form.

We often talk about increasing investment in women's football, but where to invest is the most important question. Should we invest in recruiting foreign players to improve short-term results, or invest in youth development systems to build long-term foundations? Should we focus on winning medals at international tournaments, or prioritize building a sustainable ecosystem domestically?

Based on my experience, the answer is always: build foundations first, results will follow. But this is a bitter truth in an era where results are measured by titles and views.

I have witnessed too many women's tournaments in Asia built around a few famous players, only to collapse when those players retired or got injured. The WK League in South Korea is no exception - clubs that focused too much on recruiting stars instead of developing youth systems struggled when the golden generation retired.

Therefore, my advice for Vietnamese women's football is: be patient. Not patient in waiting for success to come, but patient in building brick by brick, even when no one is watching.

And when I say "no one is watching," I want to emphasize that this is part of the problem, but not the whole. Because, as I said at the beginning of this article, football does not need spectators to heal. The girls training on empty pitches are still learning about perseverance, teamwork, and how to get up after falling. Those lessons will stay with them for life, whether they become professional players or not.

But I also want to say to those reading this article: if you can go to a stadium to watch a women's football match, please do so. Not because you want to cheer for a specific team, but because you want those girls to see: they are being seen.

After 34 years in the industry, I have learned that the biggest changes do not come from federation or club decisions, but from changes in the hearts of individual observers. When a person starts seeing the person behind the playing uniform, when a person starts calling by name instead of jersey number, when a person starts understanding that failure is not the end - that is when society changes.

And I believe that change is happening, in South Korea, in Vietnam, and everywhere around the world where girls are running after balls on empty pitches.

Before concluding, I want to share a personal memory that I have never told in any previous article.

In 2026, when I was still a young reporter for a sports newspaper, I had the opportunity to interview a retired senior female player. She talked about years of playing in harsh conditions, about having to work part-time to make a living, about being called "strange" for choosing football over "more suitable" jobs for women. When I asked if she regretted it, she replied: "Never. Because in all those years, I got to be myself."

That answer changed how I view women's sports. Not about results or titles, but about: sports allow women to be themselves in a society that often requires them to be different versions of themselves.

And that is why I continue to write, continue to tell stories, continue to correctly name the women running after balls. Not because I want to change the world - I am not that naive. But because I want those women to know: someone is watching, listening, and remembering their names.

Every contract is a life being relocated. And every match, whether there are spectators or not, is a story worth telling.

That World Cup did not misspell the name; I was just not old enough to pronounce it correctly. This saying is not just about name pronunciation - it is about growing in how we view women's sports, about understanding that what we see on the pitch is only the tip of the iceberg, and the submerged part is an entire life with expectations, fears, dreams, and disappointments.

I have been writing about women's football for 34 years, and I am still learning. Learning to see deeper, to listen more carefully, to tell stories more honestly. And I hope that in the remaining years of my career, I can continue to tell stories worth telling.

For Vietnamese football, I have one final word: be patient, be persistent, and remember that every step forward, no matter how small, is a real step forward. No one is asking you to surpass Japan or South Korea overnight. Just a little better each year. A little more spectators. A little more attention. A little more fairness.

And when the next generation looks back, they will see: those who came before did not give up, even in the darkest nights when no one believed in their dreams.

That is the legacy I believe Vietnamese women's football can build, if given the right opportunity and support.

At 50 years old, I understand that the football field has no borders, but hearts have coordinates. And my heart has found its coordinates in places where girls are running after balls, regardless of whether anyone is watching.

The women's sports corridor is not just about victories, but about doors slowly opening for the next generations. And I will continue to stand there, taking notes and telling stories, until those doors are fully open.

Numbers do not lie, but they know how to hide. And the task of storytellers like me is: pull those numbers out of the darkness, so we can see the person behind them.

Listen to data, see people, understand life. That has been my motto for the past 34 years, and will be my motto for the remaining years.

The cup is fleeting, people are forever. And I will continue to write about those people, with the hope that one day, they will be called by their correct names, seen correctly, and treated fairly - not as stars shining on the pitch, but as people who are living, breathing, and pursuing their dreams in a world that is not always fair.

Women's football does not need permission to exist, to develop, to shine. But women's football needs to be seen. And that is what I am committed to continuing to do, one article, one story, one name at a time.

The season will pass, but human connections remain. And my connection with women's football, after 34 years, has never faded.

Do not ask why I speak; ask why I am silent. Because I am silent when there is nothing to say, but when there is a story to tell, I will speak - with all the respect and honesty I have.

And the story of Vietnamese women's football, although just beginning to be told in this article, is a story worth hearing. Not because it has a perfect ending - life rarely has perfect endings. But because it has an ending being written, by the people living it.

I am just an observer, taking notes and retelling. But I believe that even observers can create change, by showing that: someone is watching, listening, and remembering.

And sometimes, that is all a person needs to know: they are not alone.

In the women's sports corridor, no one is alone. As long as someone is telling their story.

And I will continue to tell, until there is no one left to tell.

That is my pledge, as someone who has spent 34 years learning to see what others overlook, and will continue to do so until those things are no longer overlooked.

From the numbers, I see a person waiting to be called by name. And I will call their names, one by one, until no one has to wait.

That is my mission, and will always be my mission.

End.

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Jung Ji-woo Women's Sports Presenter, Women's Football Analysis Expert Incheon, South Korea 2026