Three and a half hours of flight journey from Singapore to Hanoi, followed by a 2 hours of waiting before taking another half an hour domestic flight to the beautiful city, Vinh. All in all, it took us nearly a full day to reach the home ground of one of the most supported clubs in Vietnam, Song Lam Nghe An FC.
After some research and taken some advices from VPF (Vietnam Professional Football), who is the organization in-charge of running Vietnam’s V.League, we set our base at an elegant Muong Thanh Song Lam hotel which was approximately 400m away from Song Lam Nghe An FC’s Vinh Stadium.
Certainly, other than the clean hotel room and the delicious food served (room service), the friendliness and helpfulness of the hotel staffs were constantly the only compliment coming out from our mouth. Knowing that we were football media from Singapore who were there in Vinh to cover the V.League, one of the hotel staffs invited us to their hotel team futsal session the moment we had checked in to the hotel in the evening! What could be the best way to experience Vietnamese football other than playing with the Vietnamese!
Great welcoming futsal session with the Vietnamese ended our very first night at Vinh with a big bang. In fact, that session lifted our spirit and excitement even higher now! The next day, we were out to explore the Vinh Stadium as we watched the home team, Song Lam Nghe An FC (SLNA) hosted SHB Da Nang FC!
Having linked up with SLNA prior to the trip, one of their officials picked us up at our hotel and drove us to the game venue. Although we were treated as VIP guests who were supposed to be “well-behaved”, we were unable to control the excitement within as we snapped photos at every opportunity available. Even if we were on the road to the stadium, our camera-clicking fingers were never at one point resting!
Vinh Stadium is a 18,000 seater stadium which hosts a minimum 11 competitive games annually. Outlook of the stadium is not exactly what you would imagine as a modern football stadium due to the wear and tear over the years. However, the color of the stadium does served its purpose as least it is the color of the home team – yellow!
And most importantly, the supporters from the home team did make the dilapidated stadium alive with their cheering and drumming! Their kind of cheering and drumming were not the usual tunes which we would hear from the Europeans’ or even our very own S.League’s. But it’s definitely their own style although at times, I felt a little creepy probably due to the sounds and rhythms created from the music instruments which they were using.
SLNA supporters were in full force on the game day! Loud motorbikes’ honking, gigantic yellow flags and flares lighted up the entire path to the stadium and the stadium itself, the atmosphere was marvelous!
Despite one of the clubs, Xuan Thanh Sai Gon withdrawing from the V.League with just two games remaining to the end of the current V.League campaign, the league game went on as scheduled at Vinh. Interestingly, we noticed there were many exchanges of bouquet of flowers prior to the game – supporters would presenting flowers to the players, player of the month was presented with flowers, captains from both teams would be presented with flowers at the coin tossing with the referees and etc! In additional, the National Anthem of Vietnam was played with everyone at the stand on their feet. It’s our honor to witness that too.
We were extremely lucky to be seated at what we believed to be invited guests section with both young (younger than 6yrs old) and old (above 60yrs old!), in the middle of the grandstand. Majority of the guests surrounding us at the VIP area were government officials in uniforms though. Game officially kicked off at local time 5pm. And we were treated to a high-tempo and competitive game at Vinh Stadium!
Based on our humble experience, the standard of V.League was considered good. The visitor, SHB Da Nang relied heavily on their flanks with their speedy wingers while SLNA focused more on building up from the back. The players were not shy in attempting shots from outside the penalty box and their aggressive style of play were something which really kept us entertained throughout the game! At the end of the 90 minutes, SLNA earned a hard fought victory over SHB Da Nang which the game was rated as one of the most important games at this point of time in their league season.
More photos of Junpiter Futbol’s stay in Vinh and game day, Click Here.
Thanks to Song Lam Nghe An (SLNA) FC’s General Manager, Mr. Chiem & Mr. Le, Vietnam Professional Football (VPF)’s Mr. Dung Quoc & Ms Thuy, all Muong Thanh Song Lam Hotel’s staffs and special thanks to SingaCup, Singapore International Youth Cup’s Organizer, Dynamique Konzepts for making this trip possible.
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