Skip to content

No. 214 · Sunday 9 November 2026 · Hà Nội

The Back Four

Free, every Sunday. Leave whenever you like.

This week’s issue

A draw at Mỹ Đình that felt like the start of something

Forty thousand people stayed after the whistle. I stayed too, and spent the walk home working out what the young back line got right, and what still keeps me awake.

No. 214 · Nov 9, 2026 · 9 min read

Floodlit football stadium at night seen from the stands

Nobody expected much from a back four with an average age of twenty-two. For an hour they held a shape that the senior side couldn’t manage all of last year, and when the equaliser came it came from a pass out of defence, not a hopeful ball over the top.

This week I go through the goal frame by frame, talk to two people who were in the dressing room afterwards, and make the case that the result matters less than the way it was earned.

Plus: your letters about ticket prices, a short note on the new pitch, and the one substitution I still can’t explain.

Read: A draw at Mỹ Đình that felt like the start of something

The archive

Every issue since No. 1, newest first

  1. 208

    The transfer window, explained over one bowl of phở

    Who bought whom, who overpaid, and the one signing I think will matter by March.

  2. 207

    Notes from the women’s final in Phnom Penh

    A packed stand, a late winner and a team that has waited a long time to be watched.

  3. 206

    Why the derby is better on the radio

    The commentator, the static, and the man selling sunflower seeds behind the goal.

  4. 205

    Hàng Đẫy at seventy: a letter to an old ground

    Wooden benches, a scoreboard turned by hand, and the best bánh mì cart in the city.

  5. 204

    The referee shortage nobody wants to talk about

    Forty matches a season are now run by officials with less than two years’ experience.

  6. 203

    Five young players to watch this season

    Not the obvious ones. None of them has started more than ten league games.

  1. 202

    What a new coach changed in six months

    Shorter sessions, longer video meetings and a strict rule about phones at lunch.

  2. 201

    The season preview, in one long breath

    Every club, one paragraph each, and a prediction I will be reminded of in May.

  3. 200

    Issue 200: the best letters you’ve sent me

    Four years of corrections, arguments and one very kind note from a retired goalkeeper.

  4. 199

    How clubs here really pay their bills

    Shirt sponsors, property companies and some very generous provincial budgets.

  5. 198

    A summer of under-23 football, rated

    The good, the forgettable and the goalkeeper who saved three penalties in a row.

  6. 197

    Đà Nẵng in July: a week with the youth teams

    Heat, sea air and fifty teenagers learning to play out from the back.

Portrait of Quang, a journalist in an olive field jacket

Nguyễn Minh Quang

Fourteen years of press boxes, and I still prefer the cheap seats

I’m Quang. I started on the sports desk of a Hà Nội daily in 2012, covering the youth matches nobody else wanted. Since then I’ve reported from eight countries in the region, mostly from the back of a bus.

The Back Four began in 2022 as a letter to forty friends. It is still free, still written on Saturday night, and still one long read plus whatever I couldn’t fit.

From the shop

The letter stays free. These keep it going.

Press box with laptops and a floodlit pitch outside the window

Next issue: Sunday 16 November

Get the letter on Sunday morning

One long read on the week’s football, a few short notes and your letters. Free, and it always will be.

One email a week. Leave whenever you like.