The Fourth Diamond Card: Vietnamese Football and a Measurement That Does Not Happen on the Pitch

On October 16, my phone screen lit up in a café on Nguyen Hue Street, Saigon. There was no score. No goal. No step-over for me to turn into poetry. Just a list, four groups, and in the middle, three names sitting side by side: Vietnam, China, Thailand. All three in the Diamond tier of the Member Association of the Year award given by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

I read that list three times. The first time, I looked for Vietnam. The second time, I looked at the names around it. The third time, I looked for the name that was not there: Platinum. At the top tier of this ranking, Japan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia stand alone. Vietnam is not there. Vietnam has never been there.

That was the moment I understood I was about to write an article without a ball in motion. No 67th minute, no rain on the My Dinh turf, no roar breaking out from the stands. Just a paper card measured by invisible things: operational scale, competition system, youth-training network, and programmes no spectator has ever seen.

But if you think an article without a ball in motion has no emotion, you are wrong. Because behind that fourth consecutive Diamond card lies a whole story about how we are perceived — and about whether we dare to look straight at the real numbers of our own football. The pitch does not lie. Only the people in the stands lie to themselves every weekend. But this time, the pitch was silent. And in that silence, I heard more clearly than ever the sound of a football nation asking itself where it stands.

I remember 2026, when the pandemic halted every league in the world and the pitches lay empty for months. I sat in front of a screen and wrote about the sound of absence in a Bayern–Dortmund match with no crowd. That series taught me that sometimes the most important thing is the thing that is not there. Today's Diamond list is the same. It tells a story through its gaps: the gap of a title not yet won, the gap of a Platinum tier never once reached, the gap of the names left out of the bulletin.

Four tiers of one medal

To understand this Diamond card, I have to tell you about the structure of the award. AFC divides the Member Association of the Year award into four tiers, in descending order: Platinum, Diamond, Gold, Ruby. Each tier is a group of national associations judged to be comparable in governance capacity and football development — not in national-team strength.

In the Platinum tier, the highest, AFC places three names: Japan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In the Diamond tier, the second, sit Vietnam, China and Thailand. The Gold tier includes Hong Kong, India and Malaysia. The Ruby tier, the lowest, includes Bangladesh, Guam and Laos.

When I first saw this tiering, one thought came immediately: this is a ranking in which the national team — the thing millions of Vietnamese follow every night — barely counts. You can win the AFF Cup, you can reach the third round of World Cup qualifying, you can send a whole country into the streets to celebrate, and none of that automatically lifts you into Platinum.

This is not an injustice. It is a design choice. And to understand why, I need to go into the four criteria of the Diamond tier.

What Diamond is measured by

As AFC defines it, an association seeking the Diamond tier must satisfy four pillars. The first is large operational scale — meaning the federation's apparatus is big enough to run a national football ecosystem with many competitions, many levels and many specialised departments. The second is a professional competition system — a condition I will return to later, because it is the key to understanding why the V.League matters more than a national-team final in this measurement. The third is a developed youth-training network and community football. The fourth is the effective implementation of AFC and FIFA support programmes.

Those four pillars say one thing very clearly: this award measures organisational capacity, not playing capacity. It rewards associations that build structures, run systems, nurture the next generation and cooperate with the continental apparatus.

I have followed Asian football for many years, and I always remember one thing: the football nations that develop sustainably on this continent are not the ones with one golden generation, but the ones with a system strong enough to produce many generations. Japan is not strong because it has one outstanding player. Japan is strong because it has thousands of outstanding players trained properly within a stable system. That is exactly the philosophy the Platinum tier honours.

Vietnam sits in the Diamond tier, the one just below. That means AFC judges us to be a football nation with genuine scale, a competition system, a youth-training network and the ability to implement programmes. That is no small recognition. But it is also a reminder: to climb to the top tier, we need more than victories.

Four times in a row: stability or standing still

This is the fourth consecutive time VFF has appeared on the Diamond shortlist. Four times. Throughout the life of the current award system, Vietnam has never been absent from this tier. That is a remarkable consistency.

But when I look at that number for longer, something else emerges. Four shortlists, not one win of the Diamond title. Not one promotion to Platinum. A consistency without a leap very easily becomes a standing still dressed up with certificates.

I ask myself: if you place two numbers side by side — four nominations and zero wins — which one says more about us? Perhaps both. The first number confirms a real foundation. The second points to a ceiling.

That ceiling is not on the pitch. It lies in the things Vietnamese fans rarely see: the degree of professionalisation of the competition system, the scale of the youth-training network, and the resource-mobilising capacity of the federation's apparatus. When a domestic league still depends on individual owners, when an academy still lacks facilities, when a federation still has to scramble on a tight budget — those are deductions that no qualifying win can offset.

I remember sitting in the stands at a V.League match in an old stadium, looking at the empty seats and asking myself: if there is no crowd, what is this competition system even existing for? That question came back to me when I read the second Diamond criterion. AFC does not ask how many matches your national team has won. AFC asks how professional your league has become.

The long shadow of Thailand

On the Diamond list there is one name I cannot avoid. Thailand. They sit in the same tier as Vietnam. And in the last two editions, it was Thailand who took the Diamond title.

This is the point I believe is underplayed in most bulletins. When people report that Vietnam has entered the Diamond group, they get excited about the recognition. But few say this: same list, same tier, and our neighbour has twice stepped onto the top step of that tier. A name appearing next to yours is not just a coincidence. Sometimes it is a mirror.

I do not want to turn this into a bitter comparison. But I believe the truth, however hard to hear, is better than empty encouragement. Thai football has built a league system regarded as mature in the region. Thai League is a branded product, with crowds, with commercial value. That is the foundation that lets them convert nominations into wins.

Vietnam has a strong national team, generations of players who make fans proud, fiery nights at My Dinh. But the national team is not a Diamond criterion. And that is the greatest paradox of this story: our clearest strength is the thing that does not count.

What is not seen on the pitch

I want to pause on that paradox, because it is the core of the whole story. Vietnamese fans measure football by the nights the national team plays. We remember the goals, the moments, the tears. We grow older among generations of players, and never grow older among matches. But AFC does not measure football by those nights.

AFC measures by the things that happen on ordinary days: a competition organising committee meeting, a referee training course, a school-football project, a federation financial report, a cooperation programme with FIFA. Those things have no audience. They create no moment of a lifetime. But they are the foundation.

And here is what I believe: a football nation built on fiery nights can flare up, but a football nation built on quiet ordinary days can endure. We are too used to measuring ourselves by the nights. Perhaps it is time we learned to measure ourselves by the days.

When I re-read the four Diamond criteria, I realise none of them speaks of the men's senior national team's results. This is not an omission. It is a deliberate choice. AFC wants member associations to understand that national-team results are only one part of a broader picture. That picture includes the things that never appear on television.

The award as a governance instrument

There is an angle I think few notice. When AFC puts the implementation of AFC and FIFA support programmes into the Diamond criteria, AFC is doing something bigger than giving an award. AFC is setting up an incentive mechanism.

Think of it in the simplest way. If an association wants recognition at a high tier, it must implement AFC and FIFA programmes well. That means deploying correctly, reporting correctly, coordinating correctly. And when they do well, they do not only receive recognition — they also gain the ability to keep receiving support. A cleverly designed award does not only recognise the past. It shapes the future by showing people which road will be rewarded.

This explains why the Diamond criteria lean towards development: scale, league, youth training, programme implementation. These are the factors AFC can drive through its award system. And it is also why I believe this list, though only an administrative bulletin, carries a strategic message.

Vietnam's stable presence in the Diamond tier has a practical meaning. It is an outward signal that our football apparatus works, that we are a reliable partner in the Asian football ecosystem. To sponsors and international partners, that signal has value. It does not create moments of a lifetime, but it opens doors.

Grass and green shoots

There is one detail in this story I want you to remember, because it is the true bright spot. In 2026, Vietnam was nominated in the grassroots football category and won Bronze. This year, we are again named in that category.

For someone who has followed Vietnamese football for many years as I have, this is a more welcome signal than the Diamond card itself. Because grassroots football is the root. It is where children first touch a ball. It is where a boy in a far-off district can dream of one day wearing the national shirt. Without roots, there is nothing.

A football nation cannot live only on stars that have bloomed. It must live on seeds still lying under the ground. And Vietnam's recognition in the grassroots category shows that beneath that ground, seeds are being sown.

I once visited a children's football class on the outskirts of the city. No stands, no cameras, nothing but a patch of dirt and an old ball. The children there ran until it got dark. None of them could be sure of becoming a professional player. But those very children are the reason a football nation exists. The grassroots Bronze, to me, is recognition for them.

The paradox of a special honour

Now I must say the hardest thing. The headline of the bulletin speaks of a special honour. But read carefully, what is reported is a nomination, not a win. And throughout the life of the current award system, Vietnam has not once taken the Diamond title.

I do not want to sound harsh. The recognition is real, and it deserves respect. But I believe Vietnamese fans deserve to hear the full truth. A nomination is a recognition. A win is a turning point. And those two things, even when placed side by side in the same news line, remain two different things.

There is a historical detail I consider important. In 2026, Vietnam did win a title under the old award system. Back then, AFC split the award into three groups: Inspiring, Developing and Aspiring. Vietnam won in the Developing group. That was a real win. But it happened under a different system, with different criteria. So it cannot be equated with a current Diamond title under the four-tier system.

Making this distinction clear is not to belittle the past. It is so that we do not fool ourselves. Because if we merge everything into a single success story, we lose the ability to see which step forward is real and which is imagined.

What worries me most is not that we have not won. What worries me most is that we are gradually getting used to celebrating nominations as if they were trophies. There is a dangerous kind of complacency: when people begin to find joy in being named, rather than in being named first.

I wonder: if Thailand again takes the Diamond title this year, for a third time, how will we react? Will we again write lines about a special honour, or will we dare to ask a hard question about the gap between us and our neighbour?

From Saigon, looking out at Asia

I sit in Saigon and write about a list announced in Kuala Lumpur. Between me and that Diamond card lie thousands of kilometres and countless invisible things. But I believe the real distance is not geographic. It lies in how we look.

Saigon watches football on a small screen, but its heart still hangs in the stands. I wrote that line years ago, and I still believe it is true. Vietnamese fans follow the national team on phones, on computers, on small screens in cafés and rented rooms. But their emotion is not small. Their emotion is big enough to fill a whole stadium, even when they are not there.

And precisely because that emotion is so great, I believe we have a responsibility towards it. That responsibility is not to paint every bulletin rosy. It is to tell fans the true story — of both what we have achieved and what we still lack.

There is one thing I have learned after many years in this job: a mature football nation is not one that never loses. A mature football nation is one that knows where it stands and knows where it needs to go. And to know that, it must dare to look at the numbers that are not pretty.

The fourth consecutive Diamond card is a number. It says we are in the second tier of Asian football, in governance and development terms. That is a good position. But it also says we have been there four times, and have not once stepped up. To someone who follows football, standing still in a good position for years is a signal to be decoded, not an achievement to be celebrated.

The Platinum target

So what would lift Vietnam into Platinum? The answer is not in a single match. It is in a process.

If I look at the names in the Platinum tier — Japan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia — I see one thing in common. They are all football nations with systems operating at large scale, with well-organised leagues, and with the ability to mobilise resources beyond their national borders. These are not football nations rated highly for population or market size. Jordan is a clear example: a small country, but with a football apparatus organised so well that it is ranked alongside Japan and Saudi Arabia.

That teaches me a lesson: scale is not measured by population, but by the quality of the system. Vietnam has a far larger population than Jordan. Vietnam has a far larger potential football market. But to turn that potential into a system recognised at the top tier, we need to do the things no crowd applauds.

I think about the competition system. A genuinely professional V.League — where clubs can stand on their own financially, where broadcast rights have real value, where the stands are full every round — would be the firmest foundation for raising Vietnamese football in AFC's eyes. I think about the youth-training network. An academy system spread across the country, with properly trained coaches, would supply players for many generations. And I think about community football. A strong school-football movement would be the root of all future success.

None of these things creates a moment of a lifetime. None of them sends a whole country into the streets. But these very things are what the Platinum tier is waiting for.

What I want to leave behind

I have written this article without a single goal to tell. But I think that is one of the biggest lessons football has taught me. Football does not only happen in 90 minutes. Football also happens in long meetings, thick reports, youth-training projects no one films.

Telling stories in 90 seconds, I learned that a moment need not be long, only heavy enough. And the story of the fourth Diamond card is a heavy moment — heavy because it forces us to face a question we usually avoid: are we building a football nation to win victories in a single night, or to endure across generations?

I do not know the answer to that question. But I know that each of us — from the federation manager to the fan in front of a small screen — is contributing a part of the answer. And perhaps that is the most important thing a Diamond card can remind us of.

On November 19, the 30th award ceremony will take place. I will again sit in Saigon, look at a screen, and wait for a name. Whatever the result, I know I will write again. Because this is my job, and more than that, this is my life. And because, after all, I still believe a football nation deserves to be measured by what it builds, not only by what it wins.

If Vietnam takes the Diamond title this year, it will be a beautiful story. If not, it will still be a story worth telling — as long as we tell it honestly. And if Thailand wins again, I hope we will have the courage to ask why, rather than the ease to celebrate a nomination once more.

Vietnamese football is standing in the second tier of Asia. That is not a bad position. But the second tier only means something if we still believe the first is where we belong. And that belief, in turn, only means something if we are ready to do the things no one sees, on the days when no match is played.

The Diamond card is not on the pitch. It lies where Vietnamese football must build itself.