Empty Training Ground, Echoing Heartbeats: A Journey from Busan to Vietnam's Empty Stands

Empty training ground, echoing heartbeats. I stood at the edge of an artificial turf pitch at a youth development center in Hanoi on a July morning, when temperatures had already hit 35 degrees Celsius before 8 AM. No supporters, no television cameras, only the sound of studs scraping across the surface and the labored breathing of a dozen U19 players running fitness drills around the pitch. This is a scene I have become intimately familiar with after sixteen years in the profession — from Busan IPark in K League 2, through the 2026 World Cup in Russia, to the empty training grounds of Vietnamese football in the post-pandemic era. But one detail made me stop: a young player, number 17, after completing his running drill, did not return to the group immediately. Instead, he stood still, looking toward the empty stands — where not a single person sat — and held that position for about ten seconds. He had no idea I was watching. That was the moment I realized Vietnamese football is entering a transitional phase no one is truly talking about: a generation of players raised in the darkness of empty stadiums, with no crowd to celebrate for, no noise to mask their mistakes, learning to generate motivation from within themselves.

The context of the 2026-2026 V.League season is not just a title race between giants like Công An Hà Nội or CLB Hà Nội. What I have been tracking from my observer's seat is a quieter phenomenon: the number of players under 21 appearing in starting lineups has increased by 34% compared to the previous season, according to statistics I compiled from press conferences and match registration lists. This number does not appear in official broadcasts, but it reflects an economic reality: clubs are tightening budgets after two difficult sponsorship years, forcing them to trust the young players from their own academies. At a training ground in Vinh, I witnessed a head coach — a man who once played in Japan — patiently explaining off-ball movement to a young midfielder for twenty minutes, while his assistant meticulously took notes. The image reminded me of those mornings in Gijang, Busan, when I documented every moment of Lee Jeong-hyeop's frustration after each missed penalty. The difference is that in Korea, the expectation of three hundred loyal supporters was always present behind the fence; in Vietnam today, young players train in a space where expectation exists only on their phones — through text messages from family, from agents, from fans on social media they have never met.

Players run on the pitch, I record the rhythm of every step – the memory of an observer who never sits still. What I see in these training sessions is not a lack of passion — quite the opposite, I see an almost obsessive focus. The number 17 player I mentioned at the start, named Minh Long, is just nineteen years old and has already made three V.League appearances this season. When I asked his coach about Minh Long's potential, he did not talk about technique or tactics. Instead, he said something that startled me: "The kid doesn't know how to celebrate. He scored a goal in the national U19 championship, ran back to midfield, and just stood there. I had to teach him how to raise his arms to the sky. He has no role model to imitate." That statement reminded me of a match between Vietnam U23 and South Korea U23 in last year's Asian qualifiers, when I sat in the stands at Ninh Binh Stadium — a match that ended 1-1 with little significance in terms of points, but contained a moment I cannot forget: after equalizing in the 89th minute, the Vietnamese goalscorer — a young striker born in 2026 — did not run to the corner flag to celebrate as I had seen in K League matches. Instead, he ran straight to the bench and embraced an older substitute player who had not been used in that match. This action never appeared on the live broadcast, but I saw it from my vantage point near the technical area. It was not a celebration ritual; it was a thank you, an acknowledgment that the goal did not belong only to the scorer. I realized that in Vietnamese youth football, where there is no crowd to cheer and no noise to fill the void, players are creating their own rituals — rituals that outsiders like us can hardly understand by looking only at match scores.

From my observer's seat, I see football is not a sport – it is a symphony of beautiful mistakes. But here, in these spectator-less training sessions, I see something even deeper: the loneliness of young players who must define for themselves what it means to be a professional footballer. While sitting in the waiting room of a youth training center in Da Nang, I overheard a conversation between two U17 players. One boy told his friend: "You know, I can't remember the last time my father came to watch me play. He only watches on his phone." That statement reminded me of a study I once read about the psychology of young athletes in Asia, which pointed out that the absence of live spectators does not only affect competitive motivation but also changes how young players perceive their own value. They no longer play to be seen; they play to be recognized through numbers — appearances, goals, minutes played — things they can check on mobile apps. This creates a generation of players who are remarkably disciplined and focused, but also emotionally fragile. When no one claps for you, you must clap for yourself — and not everyone knows how to do that.

There is a common misconception from the outside that Vietnamese football is developing thanks to strong investment from sponsors and media attention. The reality I observe from training sessions and dressing rooms is completely different. While major clubs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City receive media attention, most youth training centers in other provinces operate on extremely tight budgets. I visited a youth training center in Thanh Hoa where U15 players had to bring their own water from home because the club could not afford bottled water for every training session. The head coach of that age group, a former player who competed in the First Division, told me: "We have nothing to give these kids except knowledge. But I believe knowledge is the only thing that cannot be taken away." He said it with a smile, but I saw the fatigue in his eyes. This scarcity is not new — it has existed in Vietnamese football for a long time — but what has changed is that the current generation of young players no longer accepts this scarcity as part of their fate. They have smartphones, they watch European matches on YouTube, they know that elsewhere in the world, players their age are training under much better conditions. This awareness creates a fierce hunger, but also a quiet dissatisfaction that I sense in private conversations with young players. They do not complain, but they are looking for doors to escape — to Japan, to Korea, to Europe — anywhere they can be seen, evaluated, and recognized.

When the stands are empty, I hear the breathing of players more clearly than ever – it is a sound no television broadcast can capture. I have heard that breathing in Busan, in Saint Petersburg, and now at many training grounds across Vietnam. It is the breathing of people trying to push past their own limits with no one watching. That summer, I did not cry because we lost – I cried because I saw an entire nation rise after the final whistle. But today, as I left the training ground in Hanoi, I saw no tears. Instead, I saw a group of young players staying behind after everyone had left, organizing a small practice match among themselves — no referee, no spectators, no one keeping score. They played because they wanted to play. That might be the strongest signal I can send to fans worried about the future of Vietnamese football: look at the training sessions without spectators, where young players are still creating their own rhythm. Because a season never ends with the final — it only pauses, waiting for the next heartbeats from these empty training grounds.