November 9, 2026 · 9 min

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. 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.