Coach Kim Sang Sik and the Xuan Son equation: Vietnam's real test is not the 2027 Asian Cup

On October 24, at the VFF headquarters, the announcement of the November training camp took place in an unusual atmosphere. Reporters did not ask much about the opponents Chinese Taipei or Kyrgyzstan. The first question for Coach Kim Sang Sik was about Nguyen Xuan Son. His answer made the whole room understand the team's situation: "I need him." The 2027 Asian Cup is not postponed. AFC leaders have just confirmed that the tournament in Saudi Arabia will proceed as planned. But that good news did not solve the problem Vietnam are facing: a team waiting for one man, and that man still cannot train with his teammates. The November gathering is essentially a "calibration window," not a competitive test. The VFF chose Thien Truong Stadium in Ninh Binh, with a capacity of about 20,000, to organize two international friendlies: against Chinese Taipei on November 11 and against Kyrgyzstan on November 15. In the press conference, Kim Sang Sik listed the objectives: experiments, sharpness, form assessment, system operation, and fitness building. None of those words mentioned win-loss results. That is the language of a coach who wants to observe more than perform. But there is a problem inside this window. With only four days between the two matches, heavy physical loading during the camp creates an unpleasant trade-off: load too little, and the drills are ineffective; load too much, and players will carry fatigue back to their clubs and underperform in the next V.League round. The national team is a borrower of players, and this fatigue puzzle has never had an easy solution for any Southeast Asian football nation. The key point of this camp is not the scorelines of the two friendlies, but the question: how do Vietnam attack without Xuan Son? This is the question that should have been answered over the past two years, but it kept being postponed because of the overwhelming presence of the Brazilian-born number 9. Commentator Quang Huy, who has followed the team closely for years, said Kim Sang Sik will still have to build the style of play and attacking options around Xuan Son. This is not merely a compliment. It is a systemic admission: Vietnam's final third has no other organizing principle. When a team has only one attacking reference point, it has a single point of failure. And elite football always punishes such teams in big tournaments. Looking at the list of backup forwards mentioned by experts, one sees a reality: these are compromise solutions, not equivalents. Nguyen Tien Linh is a penalty-box finisher, sensitive around goal but limited in linking with midfield. Nguyen Tuan Hai is more mobile, often dropping deep, but his goal output is inconsistent. Minh Hoang is only 19, physically immature—he is an investment for the 2029–2031 World Cup cycle, not a solution for the 2027 Asian Cup. And Olaha Manh Duc, a player waiting for citizenship, remains an administrative unknown: no one knows whether his paperwork will be approved before the tournament. The suspension of Nguyen Dinh Bac for the first two group matches makes the problem far more complex. For a team in the third or fourth seed group, the first two matches usually decide the chance to advance as one of the best third-placed teams. Losing a second forward option in exactly that phase, while attacking depth is thinnest, is a non-linear challenge. To put it bluntly: our national team is entering the two most important matches of the cycle with an unproven attack. I remember once standing at a Shanghai training ground watching a team during the empty-stadium season, when the key player was absent through injury. The difference was not tactical formation. The whole training space changed rhythm: passes lost an invisible glue, combinations became fragmented. The rhythm of a match is not in the scoreline, but in the silence between two passes. For Vietnam right now, that silence is extending anxiously every time Xuan Son cannot play. The pressure on Kim Sang Sik is far higher than a typical coach in the preparation phase. After leading Vietnam to the regional title early in the year, he cut short his vacation to start planning for the Asian Cup. He once said his peace of mind only comes when the squad is complete. From a media perspective, that is a way of showing responsibility. But from a risk-management perspective, that statement places the entire burden on one player, and turns every medical decision about that player into a political decision. There is a counter-intuitive point I want to emphasize: the greatest danger for Vietnam is not that Xuan Son fails to recover in time, but that the system will become even more dependent on him if he returns. When a team becomes too dependent on one individual, the cost of a re-injury is not just losing a person; it is the collapse of an attacking idea. Asian football has seen too many teams fall into this trap: a World Cup or Asian Cup campaign built around one star, then the star gets injured, and the whole campaign passes by in regret. If Kim Sang Sik does not dare experiment without Xuan Son in the November friendlies, he will enter the finals with an unproven Plan B. Conversely, if he accepts sacrificing some smoothness to let Tien Linh, Tuan Hai, or Minh Hoang operate in a structure without Xuan Son, he will have a clear risk map before the tournament. That is the only way to turn a disadvantage into an opportunity. The financial reality behind the national team also has a dimension that cannot be ignored. The case of Olaha Manh Duc, if successful, is like a zero-fee transfer: the national team gains a sporting asset whose development costs have been borne by V.League clubs over many years. This is the cheapest depth-adding channel, but it must be understood correctly: it is a mechanism for quantity and choice, not quality. Meanwhile, for Xuan Son's club, Thep Xanh Nam Dinh, he is both the most valuable sporting asset and the biggest risk bearer. If Xuan Son suffers a re-injury while on national duty, Nam Dinh will lose an important player with no transfer compensation. FIFA's Club Protection Programme can partially compensate after about a 28-day deductible, but that compensation can hardly make up for the sporting impact and brand value of a title-hungry club. Therefore, it would be no surprise if Nam Dinh's medical staff and the national team's coaching staff seek an informal agreement to manage Xuan Son's playing minutes before he joins the squad. This is a structural tension that exists in every football nation: the club pays the salary, the national team gets the benefit. And in a major tournament cycle, this asymmetry becomes sharper than ever. On the public opinion side, the emotional cycle is still in the "accelerating wait" phase, not the judgment peak. Forums and social media still use "waiting for Xuan Son" as an obvious truth. But this wait itself breeds excessive expectation. If Xuan Son returns at 80% fitness, he will be thrown on the pitch and carry the expectations of a nation. If he suffers a re-injury, the question "why the rush" will haunt the doctors and coaching staff for years. In every scenario, the medical decision will be the most influential decision of the entire campaign. A notable detail is the VFF taking the November matches to Ninh Binh, instead of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. This is a revenue-for-reach trade-off: a provincial stadium with a capacity of about 20,000 cannot generate the ticket revenue of bigger venues, but in return, the national team reaches fans outside the central cities. Before a major tournament cycle, this choice shows the VFF is putting long-term brand building above immediate profit. What fans write behind a player's back is often a love letter never sent. For Dinh Bac, the suspension could become a psychological burden if the team starts slowly. But seen from the opposite direction, it is an opportunity: in the first two matches, the coach is forced to find a different way to play, and that could make the team more flexible when entering knockout games. In the broader context, Southeast Asian football is witnessing a systemic race. Thailand and Indonesia have made long steps toward stable playing styles, built on young players and long-standing frameworks. Vietnam, with an outstanding generation of talent early this decade, now faces the big question: can a team built around one superstar maintain its status in an environment increasingly demanding systematic play? The answer, perhaps, lies in this November camp. I keep the rhythm for those running on the pitch—that is how I belong to the match. And perhaps, the best way to belong to a big tournament is to realize this: the team will go far not because it has Xuan Son, but because it knows how to live, how to attack, and how to earn points without him. Three weeks before the 2027 Asian Cup, Kim Sang Sik's biggest test is not finding a way to bring Xuan Son back, but building a team that can survive without him. If he does that, he will not only help Vietnam get past the group stage, but also change how an entire football nation thinks about dependence. Otherwise, all that remains is a waiting question, like the one he answered on the morning of October 24 at the VFF headquarters.