V-League Violence: The Root Lies in Youth Training, Not Punishments

At Thong Nhat Stadium on a rainy afternoon, the ball rolled on a slippery pitch. In the 60th minute, a two-footed tackle from behind sent the away player crashing to the ground. The referee showed a straight red card. The offending player stood up, no reaction, no protest, and walked toward the tunnel. That was the moment I saw the entire story of this V-League season: not an individual losing control, but the complete product of a training system that taught the wrong lesson from the start. The context is not new. In the early part of the season alone, the V-League witnessed at least three serious violent incidents. Van Hau received a 4-match suspension after a dangerous challenge on Doan Ngoc Tan. Tan Sinh and Van Son each committed deliberate fouls on Dinh Bac – a rising young player targeted by two different opponents within the same match window. Not an isolated case. This is a recurring pattern, as an unnamed European expert has repeatedly warned on Dan Tri: V-League violence is not player instinct, but a habit formed at youth level, hardened by the training environment, and fueled by the pressure to win. The core of the problem is not tackling technique. It is a training system that teaches young players a quality called 'ferocity' as a survival trait. The expert points out that many youth coaches still rely mainly on playing experience, even street football experience – rather than being trained under the AFC licensing framework. When a youth coach lacks pedagogical knowledge, has not been taught how to regulate player behavior, their only reflex in a tense match is: tackle harder, intimidate opponents, dominate through physicality. The story begins with an interview with a European expert who has shared this concern with Dan Tri on multiple occasions. He did not provide statistics, did not use xG or PPDA, but offered a systemic diagnosis: V-League is paying the price for a generation of players trained by coaches without adequate pedagogical competence. He emphasized that tackling technique, duel management, and emotional control during a match are all teachable skills. And Vietnam is not teaching them systematically. The only data provided are the disciplinary outcomes: a 4-match ban for Van Hau, deliberate fouls by Tan Sin and Van Son. But the expert asks a larger question: if penalties do not prevent recurrence, do they truly serve as deterrence? He states that the purpose of a penalty is not just punishment but also prevention. If dangerous incidents continue despite penalties, the effectiveness of the current disciplinary system must be questioned. A blind spot the expert does not directly address, but which can be inferred from his framing: two different players targeting the same opponent suggests this is not merely poor tackling technique, but a deliberate intimidation tactic – a product of a coaching environment that encourages aggression. One point he emphasizes is that young players look to their seniors as role models. If dangerous tackles are tolerated at the top, they become the norm at lower levels. This is the mechanism of transmitting a culture of violence from professional down to amateur levels. Environment is also a factor. Heavy rain, poor pitch quality, competitive pressure – all are mentioned as exacerbating factors, but not root causes. A better pitch will not solve a behavioral problem. A player who has been tackling this way since age 15 will not change because the surface is better. Habits formed early and hardened over time – by the professional level, change is extremely difficult. This is why the solution lies at the root: youth coach training. Both VFF and VPF are held responsible by the expert. He recommends penalties that are stricter and – just as importantly – more consistent. The current inconsistency, in his view, is a failure of rule application, not rule design. But ultimately, penalties are only part of the story. The real lever lies in training youth coaches – those who shape how young players understand the game. Here is the counterintuitive angle: if you want to stop V-League violence, do not punish professional players more heavily. Start with C-license and B-license coaching courses, with those who stand on training pitches every day with 15-year-olds. A properly trained youth coach will teach young players how to tackle safely, how to control a match through positioning rather than aggression. A youth coach with only playing experience will teach them how to 'survive' – and 'surviving' in that sense often means being willing to go in hard on anyone. I have followed Vietnamese football long enough to know this problem is not new. Violence on Vietnamese pitches is a long-standing structural feature – not a temporary aberration. But the value of this analysis is not in discovering something new; it is in getting the diagnosis right: the problem is not individual indiscipline, but the lack of a football education system at the root level. Punishment is just a painkiller; coach training is the treatment. The final question is not whether VFF will issue harsher penalties. The question is: do we have the patience to wait for a generation of properly trained youth coaches to replace those who rely on outdated experience? Because if not, we will continue to see those kinds of tackles – in the rain, on poor pitches, and in front of a system that has accepted them as part of the game. And that is when we must remember: a pass two meters off is not a technical error, it is a crack in the entire cognitive system. A dangerous tackle is not the fault of a player who lost control; it is the product of a system that taught him that control through violence is acceptable. Glory does not fade overnight; it begins to crack from the 60th minute of the match against Russia. And the V-League is cracking every day, every match, every challenge – until we decide to fix it from the root. People shine lights on the winners; I shine lights on where they stumbled. That light reveals a large gap in Vietnamese football's youth development system – a gap of untrained coaches, of non-existent curricula, and of a culture that still believes football is a place to show ferocity rather than intelligence. The season may stand still, but the corner kicks keep rolling in the data sheet. And those kinds of tackles keep repeating, until we place the ball in a different position – one that allows a different football culture to grow.