Vietnamese Football 2026: The Physical Management Gap During the Pandemic

On February 20, 2026, when VPF announced the indefinite suspension of V-League, no one imagined that the biggest concern was not the schedule, but bare feet running along village paths to keep fit. Đoàn Văn Hậu in casual clothes jogging along a road in Thái Bình, Quang Hải riding a bicycle at home – that was all we saw of the players' "fitness" in nearly 4 months of suspension. When the league returned with a centralized format in Thái Nguyên and Nam Định, club doctors began to receive a series of muscle injuries. Hamstring pain, posterior thigh strains, Achilles tendinitis – these cases arrived within the first 4 weeks after football's return. I have followed medical reports from 5 clubs and noticed a common thread: no team had data on the players' training load during their home workouts. Data never lies; only our interpretation can be wrong. Clubs are used to measuring running distance with GPS on the training ground, but when players leave the club facilities, the measurement system goes blind. Transitioning from relaxed self-training to 90-minute official matches is a huge shock. The body is not prepared with a gradual plan; metrics like heart rate, muscle strength, flexibility were barely recorded. People think resting long means getting stronger, but in reality muscle mass drops significantly without proper loading. That is why the muscle tear rate spiked. I don't blame the players' fitness; I found the gap in how we measure their readiness. Most V-League clubs lack a dedicated fitness coach, let alone remote support systems. At home, players ask themselves "how much should I run?" and the answer is often guesswork. Injuries are a story, and that story begins when they leave the training ground, not when they collapse on the pitch. No one was surprised when CLB Viettel won the 2026 V-League – a squad with stable fitness thanks to military-style training. But teams relying on individual brilliance paid the price. The question for next season: has Vietnamese football's fitness data system been rebuilt, or will we face another wave of injuries?