Vietnam Loses Both Gia Hung and Xuan Son: The Forward Crisis and the Pakistan Trap

There is a moment I cannot forget, and it is not a goal.

It was during a training session of the Vietnam national team at the ASEAN Cup, when Pham Gia Hung stood at the edge of the pitch with a phone in his hand. I saw it through a short clip a reporter posted on social media, and I paused the frame. A player standing at the edge of the pitch, not training, eyes down at his phone, while teammates ran combination drills in the middle. To most people, that was just a random image from training. To me, it was a signal that Vietnam's next match had begun to go wrong before the ball was even kicked.

Hours later, the coaching staff confirmed Pham Gia Hung was leaving the squad to attend his mother's funeral. At the same time, Xuan Son — the other of the two primary attacking spearheads — could not play due to injury. Two strikers, two entirely different reasons, one single result: Vietnam's attack was emptied out just as the decisive match against Pakistan approached.

I don't watch the match, I watch how they collapse. And here, the collapse is not in a passage of play, it is in the team sheet.

Context: A tournament Vietnam cannot afford to get wrong

To understand why losing both Gia Hung and Xuan Son is so serious, it must be placed in the context of the ASEAN Cup — where Vietnam entered as a traditional title contender but lost to Thailand and surrendered their chance to reach the final. Coach Kim Sang Sik's team currently has 3 points from 2 matches, facing the prospect of having to secure second place — meaning they only need to avoid losing to Pakistan to hold that position, but cannot afford complacency.

The Pakistan match takes place at Bung Karno Stadium, a venue where Vietnam has no home advantage. This is a detail many overlook when discussing Vietnam's "favourites" status: a theoretical edge in squad quality does not automatically convert into an on-pitch advantage, especially when a team loses its two primary goalscorers.

As a commentator who has followed Southeast Asian football across multiple tournament cycles, I recognise a familiar pattern: Southeast Asian teams tend to build their attacking systems around one or two outstanding individuals, rather than constructing a structure that can function independently of specific people. Vietnam is no exception. When both spearheads disappear at once, the system does not merely lose two players — it loses the entire anchor point of every attacking move.

Core analysis: The crisis is not in the goals, it is in the structure

When a team loses its central striker, the first issue pundits usually raise is "a lack of goalscorers." That is a shallow reading. The real problem lies elsewhere: when there is no central striker, the entire attacking structure must be rewritten from scratch, and every player on the pitch must play in a position they have never been trained to play.

Look at how Vietnam attacked in matches with Gia Hung or Xuan Son. The ball was typically built from midfield, then advanced into the final third along two main routes: a long ball toward the striker to contest aerially, or a ball into the central channel for the striker to turn and shoot. Both routes depended on the presence of a player capable of holding the ball, contesting duels, and finishing. When that player disappears, those balls have no destination. They become aimless passes, and the team is forced into a different attacking approach for which it has not prepared.

That approach, based on what I have observed from recent training sessions and matches, will most likely be a possession-based system through midfield, with midfielders pushing higher and wingers cutting inside to create threat from the flanks. Nguyen Tien Linh — who has experience playing centrally — may be pulled inside more often, but this is not a simple adjustment. A player trained to play wide loses his spatial instincts when pushed into the middle: he does not know when to attack the box, when to drop as a wall, when to hold the ball and wait for support. Those decisions are built over hundreds of hours playing centrally — they cannot be learned in a few sessions.

What Vietnam's attack loses is not the ability to score — it is the ability to force the opposing defence into mistakes. An elite central striker does not just score; he creates space for teammates by dragging defenders out of position, by contesting long balls so midfielders have time to push up, by forcing opponents to choose between marking a man or holding shape. Without that player, the opposing defence faces no difficult choices at all. They simply hold their shape, and every attacking move dissolves on its own.

There is one tracking data point I find noteworthy: in the loss to Thailand, Vietnam held acceptable possession but recorded very few touches inside the opponent's box. This signals a problem that predates the striker absence, not one that emerged after it. Without a player able to hold the ball in the final third, attacking moves must end in long shots or crosses with no one on the end of them. That is an attack that is easy to defend, and Pakistan — weaker in quality — can certainly organise a sufficiently deep defence to repel it.

Another rarely mentioned dimension is the physical and psychological burden placed on midfielders. Without a central striker, central midfielders must push higher to compensate, opening space behind them. If Pakistan have quick wide players, Vietnam can be counter-attacked from their own attacking phases. This is the trap many big teams have fallen into: they push up to chase a goal, then get punished by an opponent waiting for a single opportunity.

I don't watch the match, I watch how they collapse. And here, the collapse may come from the very push forward of a team trying to compensate for a gap it cannot fill.

Contrarian angle: The problem is not the missing strikers

This is where I want to pose a question that runs counter to the popular narrative.

Vietnamese public opinion — and regional media — are telling the story of a team that lost two strikers for legitimate reasons: one returning home for his mother's funeral, one injured. It is an emotional story, and I understand why it is told that way. But the emotional story is concealing a more serious structural problem: Vietnam has depended on two individuals in the striker position while failing to develop a backup of sufficient quality to replace them. This is not an accident — it is a decision, or a failure to decide, made over many years.

Let me burn a corner of the pitch, then we can talk about the light. When Thailand lose their main striker, they have backup players of sufficient quality to replace him without changing the entire system. When Indonesia lose a naturalised player, they have a generation of well-trained young players to compensate. Vietnam — with one of the best-developed youth systems in the region — finds itself with no genuine central striker in the squad for its decisive match. This is a paradox worth pondering.

The paradox has a cause. At V.League club level, teams tend to use foreign players in the central striker position. This means domestic players get no chance to develop in that role in a top-level competitive environment. When they reach the national team, they are forced into a role for which they were never prepared. This is a systemic problem, not the problem of one coach or one match.

I may be wrong here. Perhaps Kim Sang Sik has a contingency plan I don't know about, perhaps he planned for this scenario in advance. But my tracking data from recent matches shows Vietnam has not demonstrated any clearly distinct attacking approach when Gia Hung or Xuan Son are absent. The team plays the same pattern, only with different players. And when the pattern does not change, results are unlikely to change favourably.

Another aspect of this story concerns how the coaching staff handled Gia Hung's situation. The decision to let him leave immediately was the right one on a human level, and it protected dressing-room cohesion. But tactically, it placed the team in a position for which it had no preparation time. This is the trade-off any coach must face: between protecting an individual and protecting the collective result. Kim Sang Sik chose the human being, and I think that was the right choice. But the price of that choice will be paid on the pitch.

Deeper analysis: Pakistan is not a comfortable opponent

There is a dangerous complacency in how public opinion assesses the Pakistan match. Because Pakistan is often regarded as the weakest team in the region, people assume Vietnam only needs to show up to win. But football does not operate on that logic, especially when the higher-rated team is in a personnel crisis.

Pakistan, as the underdog, will play with nothing to lose. They will organise a deep defence, play counter-attacking football and wait for the opponent's mistakes. This is the tactic any lower-ranked team would choose, and it is especially effective when the opponent lacks a central striker to break down a packed defence.

Without a central striker, the attacking team must seek chances from the flanks. The ball goes wide, then is crossed into the box. But a packed defence with 8 or 9 players inside the box easily deals with those crosses, especially with no aerial presence in the final third. This is simple maths: 2 attackers cannot beat 8 defenders in a confined space.

The only way to break a packed defence is intelligent off-ball movement, creating space by dragging defenders out of position, and exploiting the moments when the defence loses organisation. These are skills Vietnam may possess in midfield, but converting them into goals requires a finisher — precisely the player they are missing.

I was once abused for saying Salah is not number one. Now I await an apology. And here, I want to say something similar: the Pakistan match is not an easy game, and anyone who thinks otherwise is underestimating the severity of the current situation.

Pressure and expectation: A two-way story

There is a social dimension to this story I want to analyse, because it directly affects the team's psychology.

Vietnamese public opinion is showing sympathy for Pham Gia Hung. This is the morally correct response, and it creates an environment in which no one dares criticise him. But this sympathy also produces a side effect: it shifts the entire burden onto coach Kim Sang Sik and the remaining players. If Vietnam lose to Pakistan, the question will no longer be "why is Gia Hung absent" but "why did Kim Sang Sik have no contingency plan."

This is the nature of pressure in football: it never disappears, it only shifts from one person to another. And in this case, it is shifting from a player enduring a personal loss to a coach responsible for a collective result.

There is something I have observed from experience covering many regional tournaments: Southeast Asian teams tend to handle pressure less well than European teams, not because they are psychologically weak, but because they have fewer opportunities to experience high-pressure matches. A European player plays 40 must-win games a season, while a Southeast Asian player may only play 5 or 6 truly important matches a year. This difference in exposure creates a difference in the ability to handle pressure in decisive moments.

The Pakistan match will be a test of that ability. And it will take place in a context where the team lacks players capable of settling a match with an individual moment — something they usually rely on when things get difficult.

Looking ahead: What will be revealed

Pause the frame, and the game truly begins. And here, the frame I want to pause is not a specific passage of play, but a tactical moment: the moment Kim Sang Sik makes his decision on how to set up the attack against Pakistan.

If he chooses a false nine and adds more attacking midfielders, that signals he prepared for this scenario and has a clear plan. If he pushes a winger into the middle and keeps the system unchanged, that signals the team is playing on inertia rather than analysis. And if he chooses a completely unexpected option — using a full-back as an extra attacker, for example — that signals recklessness, possibly necessary but also full of risk.

I don't watch the match, I watch how they collapse. And in this case, the collapse may come from a wrong tactical decision in the first half, when the team realises it cannot create chances and begins to change structure desperately.

What I want to see — as an analyst, not a fan — is a team that accepts the reality that it has no central striker, and builds an attacking system based on what it has. That could be a high-pressing system to win the ball in the opponent's half, creating chances from second balls. It could be a slow possession system, waiting for the opponent's mistakes rather than trying to create chances through force. Either option is better than trying to play as if the strikers were still there.

Tactics are not on the board, they are in the fear of each player. And the greatest fear of Vietnam's players right now is not losing to Pakistan — it is the feeling that they are playing a match for which they lack the tools to win.

Takeaway

I predict Vietnam will beat Pakistan, but not through a convincing performance. The scoreline may be 1-0 or 2-1, with the goal coming from a set piece or an individual moment from a midfielder, not from an organised attacking move. And if that happens, it will confirm what I said from the start: Vietnam's problem is not losing two strikers — the problem is a football system that failed to prepare for the possibility of losing them.

A season only truly begins when someone dares to say what no one dares to say. And what no one dares to say here is: a win over Pakistan, if it comes, will not solve the structural problem. It will only conceal it for another cycle. The real question is not whether Vietnam get past Pakistan — it is when Vietnam will build an attack that does not depend on two names.