The Tragedy of the Forgotten: Vietnam Enters a Do-or-Die Clash with Thailand Without Xuan Son

I declared war on defensive football in 2026, and no one has been brave enough to accept the challenge yet. At 68, sitting here in the heart of Osaka, I look at the photo of Nguyen Xuan Son leaving Indonesia on a stretcher, and I see something that the Vietnam national team's coaching staff is perhaps deliberately refusing to see. That number 12 shirt was not just a player. It was an entire attacking system. And when that system collapses, they organize a tribute. A tribute. As if this were a funeral, not a battle. I have lived in Japan long enough to recognize the difference between the sports culture here and back home. In Japan, when a player gets injured, they immediately have plan B, plan C, all calculated a month in advance. In Vietnam, we wait until the stretcher appears, then sit down together to talk about courage. Courage does not score goals. Strikers score goals. Look at the raw data. Xuan Son tore his posterior thigh muscle in the match against the Philippines on September 26. Diagnosis from doctors: 4 to 6 weeks out. This is not a minor injury. This is a typical soft-tissue injury in modern football, with a high recurrence rate if he returns too early. The coaching staff knows this. The doctors know this. But the crowd does not. The crowd only sees the captain's armband and sweet tributes on social media. Vietnam enters the match against Thailand on September 29 without its main striker. The match against Pakistan on October 2 is the same. These are not ordinary group-stage matches. These are decisive matches for a ticket to the final. And we have no one to score. I have followed Vietnam's matches at ASEAN Cups for two decades. Xuan Son is not just a striker. He is a tactical spearhead. His ability to hold up the ball, act as a target man, and finish inside the box is something no other player in the current squad can replace. When you lose a player like that, you lose more than goals. You lose an entire way of playing. Crosses from the wings become meaningless. Central combinations lose their final destination. And most importantly, you lose the ability to pressure the opponent's defense with a constant threat. Nguyen Hai Long, a midfielder, has declared he will 'play in Son's place.' This is a brave statement. But also a dangerous one. Because it places the entire burden on a midfielder who was never trained to be a striker. Hai Long is not a number 9. He does not have the ability to contest aerial balls, does not have the ability to shield the ball with his physique, and does not have the habit of making runs in the box. This is a replacement by will, not by expertise. I understand the players' psychology. I understand the feeling when a brother is injured, and you want to fight for him. But football does not reward emotion. Football rewards goals. And at this moment, Vietnam's attacking equation is an equation with no clear solution. The coaching staff will have to choose between two paths. The first path is to play with a false nine, push a midfielder higher, and hope for individual breakthroughs. This is the way of small teams, teams without a top-class striker, teams that accept tactical disadvantage to compensate with mobility. The second path is to completely change the formation, switch to a midfield-heavy possession scheme, and seek goals from group combinations. Neither path is ideal. The first depends on luck. The second depends on time, which Vietnam does not have. And this is where I must ask myself a question no one wants to hear. Why is Vietnam so dependent on a naturalized striker? I have no problem with Xuan Son. But I have a problem with a development system that cannot produce a domestic striker of sufficient caliber to play at this level. We have talked about youth football development for twenty years. We have built academies, we have hired foreign experts. Yet when our naturalized striker gets injured, we still have to beg a midfielder to do his job. This is a failure of systemic thinking. Not of an individual. The match against Thailand is a special match. Not only because it decides a ticket to the final. But also because it is a symbol of regional rivalry. Xuan Son, in earlier statements, said he aspired to help Vietnam beat Thailand. Now he cannot do that. And that means the rest must do it for him. I have witnessed Vietnam lose to Thailand at crucial moments many times. In 2026, we won. In 2026, we lost. In 2026, we won. But those victories all had one thing in common: we had strikers who knew how to score. Now we do not. I could be wrong. And I am frequently wrong. I once said Japan would beat Belgium at the 2026 World Cup, and we all know what happened. But when I am wrong, I say I was wrong, and I go drink beer. That is the way of a 68-year-old man. What worries me most is not the result of the match. What worries me most is how we deal with loss. Tribute is a beautiful gesture. But tribute cannot replace a striker. And if Vietnam loses to Thailand, today's tributes will become tomorrow's self-recriminations. Look at how big teams around the world deal with injuries. They do not hold tribute ceremonies. They activate replacement clauses, they adjust tactics, and they move forward. I spoke about this on my podcast after the 2026 World Cup: when Nishino did not make substitutions at the 70th minute, he did not just commit suicide. He also let the crowd kill him again with their schadenfreude. Vietnam is currently in a similar situation. The coaching staff can choose to hold tributes, or they can choose to change tactics. I hope they choose the latter. There is a truth we all know but few dare to say: in modern football, emotion is a luxury. Champion teams are teams that know how to set emotion aside and focus on what is necessary. They do not cry when a player gets injured. They find a way to replace that player. Vietnam has had a Xuan Son. But Vietnam cannot have only one Xuan Son. This is the biggest lesson from this injury. If we cannot produce a new generation of strikers, we will forever depend on naturalized players, and we will forever be wounded by their injuries. I declared war on defensive football in 2026. But right now, I am not declaring war on anyone. I am just sitting here, looking at the screen, and asking myself whether Vietnam has the courage to face the truth. The truth is: without Xuan Son, Vietnam will have to play a different match from everything we are used to. And if we play well, we will prove that we do not depend on anyone. But if we play poorly, we will pay the price with a ticket to the final. I declared war on defensive football in 2026, and no one has been brave enough to accept the challenge yet. I wonder whether Vietnam has the courage to declare war on itself. Modern football is suffocating under those who fear losing so much they forget how to win. Vietnam must not fear losing in this match. But to not fear losing, we need the ability to win. And our ability to win is being questioned more than ever. I will follow this match. Not as a Vietnamese, but as a sports observer. And if Vietnam wins, I will call it a miracle. If Vietnam loses, I will call it a lesson in systems. The final question I want to pose to my readers: If you were the coach of the Vietnam national team, what would you do to replace Xuan Son? Would you place your trust in Hai Long, in a young striker, or in a completely new tactic? Let me know. I enjoy debate. That is why I am still podcasting at 68. I have declared war on defensive football for years. But sometimes, attacking football also needs a bit of luck. And luck, as we all know, is not a tactic.