When Pressing Is Forgotten: Vietnam’s Puzzle Ahead of the ASEAN Championship

A moment from a match at My Dinh Stadium recently made me put down a note that no highlight package would ever show. Vietnam lost the ball in their own half, but instead of pressing right away, most players dropped back toward the edge of their box. The opponent put together four simple passes and then shot from outside the area. There was no obvious individual mistake and no visible hole in the defensive line. The whole block simply accepted a shot that could have been killed two seconds earlier.

I remember the conditions that create results more than I remember results. Since the start of 2026, I have followed Vietnam in four matches, both friendlies and qualifiers, and that pattern has appeared more often than it did in the 2026–2026 AFF Cup cycle. My own spreadsheets reflect this: the team’s PPDA – the number of passes a defending side allows before the first progressive action – has gone from 9.0 to 11.6. In other words, opponents are now allowed nearly 2.6 extra passes before meeting Vietnam’s pressing line.

The data does not convict anyone. But it raises a precise question: are Vietnam pressing less than they did four years ago, or are they trying to press in a different way?

Context extends the story. In the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, Vietnam can no longer rely only on a deep block and counterattacks. Stronger opponents control far more of the ball, while mid-tier rivals happily give up possession. Vietnam have been forced to keep more of the ball, but the starting structure is still built around wingers and attacking midfielders – a shape designed for quick transitions. The result is that the deeper line has the ball but no one making vertical runs, while the front line, when not in possession, does not know which half-space to attack.

The problem goes beyond the head coach’s chair. From V-League clubs to the national team, Vietnamese football has long operated with one central playmaker and two supporting wide players. When that football culture meets Thailand’s aggressive pressing or Indonesia’s physical explosion, every weakness in collective movement is exposed.

Watching the last four matches, I have noticed that Vietnam win more balls in the space behind the opponent’s defense than in high pressing situations near the opponent’s goal. That is not wrong, but it makes the team dangerously dependent on the quality of one decisive pass. If one of those passes misses, Vietnam lose the ball on their own half, where a striker can create a chance worth more than 0.15 xG within a few seconds.

In every match, I log how many times Vietnam regain the ball within five seconds of losing it. That figure is currently 5.8 per game, down 1.9 from their own average at the 2026 AFF Cup. It sounds small, but translated into opponent shots created after Vietnam turnovers, it means more than 1.2 extra shot-creating actions every game. In a short tournament, 1.2 such moments can turn a draw into defeat.

Every shot is a hypothesis. xG is how we test it. If you look only at a 1-0 result, you may think Vietnam were solid enough. But when I isolate the defensive moments after turnovers, I see a structural issue: Vietnam’s central midfielders choose to block passing lanes rather than press the ball carrier. That keeps the team compact for about 60 percent of the time, but during the other 40 percent, the opponent’s midfielder has enough time to look up and switch the point of attack. Once the ball is shifted from left to right in three short passes, the whole back line has to move, and the spaces between positions begin to grow.

Looking at the numbers from the matches against Indonesia and Iraq over the past year, I see Vietnam conceding mostly from quick side-to-side switches out of midfield rather than from direct vertical attacks. The defence is not losing its shape, but the midfield cannot get back to help when the ball is switched. As a result, the full-backs have to step higher, leaving space behind them where opposition forwards can receive the ball and shoot. If Vietnam continue to defend very deep, opponents will be comfortable building play, exactly as Thailand did in the 2026 AFF Cup final.

Germany collapsed in my spreadsheets before they collapsed on the pitch. I do not want to make too heavy a comparison with Vietnam, but the logic is similar. A team used to controlling possession, but unable to control the moment when they win the ball back, loses half the game. From Quang Hai and Hoang Duc to the newer generation, the issue is not passing ability or finishing. It is the ability to put the entire team into the right pressing state after every turnover.

The head coach can demand high pressing in training sessions, but match data does not lie. In the last four games, successful pressing actions in the opponent’s final third accounted for only 24 percent of all pressing actions, while in the peak period under head coach Park Hang-seo the figure was 32 percent. An eight-point gap may not sound big, but in a tournament where goal difference can decide qualification, it may be the difference between staying and going home.

Many analysts celebrate pressing as an ideology. I do not think so. Pressing is only a hypothesis. It works when the team has enough stamina, enough coordination, and enough ability to anticipate where the second ball will drop. For Vietnam, not every match allows ninety minutes of pressing. What matters more is timing: pressing in the first fifteen minutes of each half, or pressing in the ten minutes after the opponent makes substitutions. Recent data from AFF Cup and ASEAN Cup champions shows they were not the teams with the highest pressing volume in the tournament; they were the teams with the most intentional pressing actions around the middle third.

Looking at influence rankings by player group, strikers often make the first pressure. In my observation, Vietnam’s forwards do this in a fragmented way, without proper cover from the two wide midfielders. At several moments, I saw Nguyen Tien Linh sprint to pressure an opponent centre-back, but behind him the distance to the midfield line was more than 25 metres. A solo press is never as effective as a cluster press. That space does not have to be filled by speed; it needs to be filled by the proactive movement of the two nearest players, and their movement data has not reflected that yet.

The biggest question before the Southeast Asian finals is not whether Vietnam can keep the crown, but what the team have learned from the moments they lost control in the qualifiers. If we treat the friendlies as a laboratory, the experiment is showing that Vietnam need a situational pressing system, not an impulsive one. Data is never in a hurry. People who hurry are the ones who get it wrong. But the final round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers no longer leaves much time for experiments.

We are talking about a team with a tradition of defensive counterattacks, moving gradually toward more possession in the past two years. That mix is necessary, but it needs a distinct identity: a midfield that knows how to press without losing its structure. If Vietnam can do that, they can force opponents into mistakes in dangerous areas instead of waiting for a bad pass in the opponent’s third. In a tournament where matches are defined by one moment, the team that creates those moments more deliberately will go further.

Southeast Asian football is experiencing a physical and tactical shift. Younger, fitter squads such as Indonesia and Thailand are ready to trade attacks with anyone. Vietnam have experience and big-match composure, but experience without being converted into specific tactical situations will be left behind. People remember results. I remember the conditions that form results. The key condition here is the speed of decision-making after losing the ball – one extra second of hesitation, and the opponent has already moved the ball forward.

There is nothing wrong with a match having few chances. But if the team defends only inside the penalty area and hopes for one perfect counterattack, they will eventually meet an opponent patient enough to wait for the error. Kim Sang-sik understands that better than anyone. His reputation is built on substance, not illusion. But he needs the data from the recent qualifying games to be brave enough to change a few positions, and to change the way the team begins to control the game.

When the finals approach, I will not look at the results of the last friendlies to judge Vietnam. I will look at the number of intentional pressing actions in the first ten minutes of each half, the number of ball recoveries within five seconds, and the average distance between the striker and the central midfielders. These are the variables that have helped me describe Southeast Asian football accurately for more than a decade. Remember: every shot is a hypothesis, and xG is how we test it. For Vietnam, the biggest hypothesis waiting to be tested is whether they will press as a team or only press with intention.