Eight games into the V.League 1 season and there’s a new pacesetter with their sights firmly on the title…and it’s not who you’d expect.
Perennial powerhouses Hanoi FC and Becamex Ho Chi Minh City are languishing mid-table, the likes of Song Lam Nghe An, SHB Da Nang, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, and even defending champions Thep Xanh Nam Dinh are finding themselves in the lower half of the table, while recent emerging forces in The Cong-Viettel and Cong An Hanoi have thrown their hat into the title race but are not currently top of the table despite being undefeated so far.
Also yet to taste defeat and sitting pretty on top of the table, is newly-promoted Ninh Binh FC.
Granted, Ninh Binh’s rise to the top-half of the table isn’t that surprising – after all, they were promoted with a luxurious squad containing the likes of Dang Van Lam, Do Thanh Thinh, Nguyen Hoang Duc, Dinh Thanh Binh, and Mach Ngoc Ha – but what’s surprising is how quickly the Men of Hoa Lu had proved their credentials as a rising force in Vietnamese football.
The likes of Da Nang, Nam Dinh, and Hanoi had fell to their might and head coach Gerard Albadalejo, in his first job outside of his native Spain, is slowly building his reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s prospective young head coaches.
And this was after Ninh Binh had stolen attention in the off-season not because of their star-studded reinforcements, but their owners’ strange fixation towards Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen.
Since last season Ninh Binh – who were bankrolled by LPBank and ThaiGroup – wore black-and-red uniforms with a massive cross-like pattern across the chest, not unlike the design wore by Leverkusen in their memorable 2023/24 campaign where they won the league undefeated.
The design was retained after Ninh Binh had switched apparel suppliers from local company Vloop to Thai giants Grand Sport.
And as if the Leverkusen cosplay wasn’t enough, the Ninh Binh owners have replaced the club badge with a badge that resembles a fusion of Leverkusen’s and XM The Vissai Ninh Binh, the province’s former top-flight side.
As for Ninh Binh’s reinforcements, they have further upgraded their squad with plenty of who’s who in Vietnamese football – Dung Quang Nho, Nguyen Quoc Viet, Nguyen Trong Long, Chau Ngoc Quang, Nguyen Duc Chien, Geovane Magno, Gustavo Henrique, and Janclesio. They even managed to convince Tran Thanh Tung, who was born in Bulgaria and had previously played for Slavia Sofia, to turn out for them.
In Trong Long, Ninh Binh had someone who had experienced this sort of thing before – he was part of the CAHN side that won the 2023 V.League 1 title in their very first year after promotion.
That said, the season is still long and there’s still plenty to play. Ninh Binh will inevitably encounter several obstacles to their title push, but should their maintain their current consistency, Vietnamese football may found themselves facing a new force to be contend with.