When the independence day becomes a day to watch a World Cup game: the feelings of Vietnam before its maiden appearance in the final phase

Only a day later that the encounter between Saudi Arabia and Vietnam will begin as part of the final round of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification in Asia. The match is just a small part of the much larger campaign that would span for over a year to decide the final four, with a fifth to be added in case of playoffs.

Mentioning the game between Saudi Arabia and Vietnam surprisingly startled my feeling. I have always been somewhat unlucky in predicting a winner in football, and again, I sensed something bad about Vietnam's perpetration for the 2022 World Cup run. Indeed, and worse, the defence suffered most of the losses, many of Vietnam's key defenders that joined the squad since the 2018 U-23 Asian Championship second-place finish had been absent due to injuries. Not to mention the V-League season of 2021 was officially cancelled due to failure to guarantee bubble travel, resulting in a great loss of Vietnamese football hope during the COVID-19 pandemic; the third wave with the Delta variant has been very destructive for the country, adding with a very sluggish vaccination campaign that led Vietnam to be the second-least vaccinated nation in Southeast Asia. Players had been largely sent home to do other jobs. Let's not forget, Vietnamese football league is still somewhat semi-professional, in spite of the fact that the country has moved fast forward to full-fledged professionalism since the 2000s. That was the situation when the Korean coach Park Hang-seo decided to bring the team to Saudi Arabia. Yes, the Korean coach that came only by an accident in 2017, but now an acclaimed celebrity in Vietnam due to his successes. The current situation, however, was described by himself as "the hardest days in my coaching career", summarised all the crises Vietnam is facing.

Then, the team travelled to Saudi Arabia, of course. The travel was also very problematic - the team had to transit in Doha due to the prohibition of flights between Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Yet there were not enough necessary transit tickets due to somewhat mismanagement of Qatari officials and the Vietnamese officials had to beg Saudi officials to provide the team with a private jet. Thankfully, Saudi Arabia was open to Vietnamese requests, the team finally landed in Riyadh, safe and coronavirus-free. In the end, though, Vietnam has to battle the heat of the Arabian desert, where the climate at night still stands at 35-40 Celsius degrees, and little rains.

Vietnam came to this stage in an even much harder situation than that of Thailand - when the Thais first faced Saudi Arabia in this final stage four years ago, the Thai team travelled on a clear private jet, supported by a cruise of staff responsible for nutrition, stamina, health, injuries, etc; true professionalism, you can see. Moreover, unlike today, the situation back five years ago was okay. Seeing how hard the Vietnamese team landed in Saudi Arabia, the host country's media immediately ramped up the news about Vietnam's miseries and was confident about Saudi Arabia's three points safely on the hand even before the match start, even going further by recalling the 2002 World Cup qualification, which Saudi Arabia beat Vietnam both in Jeddah 5-0 and 4-0.

It was easy to see the positive sentiment of the Saudis. Also the previous qualifiers, Saudi Arabia started their World Cup quest with a win over Thailand, also from Southeast Asia, 1-0, thanked a penalty from Nawaf Al-Abed. Saudi Arabia would go on to finish second, even ahead of then-Asian champions Australia, who had only qualified for Russia via playoffs. The lucky experience with Southeast Asia in the 2018 qualifiers fueled this development. Though some Saudi media tried to constraint, the main theme was about the Saudis' tactics to obtain three points from Vietnam. Then, a recent publication by the Saudi Football Federation revealed Hervé Renard - current coach of Saudi Arabia and, ironically, used to work in Vietnam back in 2003 - talking about Vietnam's strength and weaknesses, and that Saudi Arabia should strike directly to mop up Vietnamese defence.

Some people in my native country questioned the credibility of the video and distrusted Saudi intention. Yet if you have seen what happened to Uzbekistan, a team far stronger than Vietnam, denied by the same opponent to reach this phase in June, I would rather say that Saudi Arabia is far more confident than expected. Renard was realistic: he didn't hide because he believed Saudi Arabia would win, no matter what. Overall, Saudi Arabia would play at home, in this first match. Why hiding?

Yet the opening game between Saudi Arabia and Vietnam would be played on 2 September in Saudi Arabian timezone. By this time, it was 3 September's 1 AM in Vietnam. For the Vietnamese, 2 September is an important memory. It was that day the Vietnamese communist leader, Hồ Chí Minh, stood speaking in front of thousands of Vietnamese standing in the Ba Đình square, then known as Puginier square, the Declaration of Independence. Of course, Hồ wasn't alone; he was accompanied by a lot of American intelligence officials, notably Archimedes Patti, the leader of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), which later became the notorious CIA.

The American help for Vietnamese independence was unexpected but noteworthy. Many of these American officials who got lost in Southern China was rescued by Hồ-led Việt Minh, a nationalist group fighting for Vietnamese independence, during late 1944 and early 1945. Hồ differed from the rest of the communist leaders - he wholeheartedly trusted the Americans and even invited them to train the soldiers of his group. Eventually, the Vietnam Propaganda Liberation Army - the predecessor of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces - got used to newly-developed Western and American military training, equipment, organisation and tactics. The OSS agents were reported to be sympathetic to Hồ, to a point they didn't see him as a communist. For the South Vietnamese diaspora, many are descendants of the refugees fleeing in 1975, this was a glaring example of the United States' failure to protect South Vietnam.

Still, that historic 2 September marked the end of joint Japanese-French colonisation, at least temporary before the French return. The day remains deeply celebrated in Vietnam and in some pro-government diaspora, although, for the loyalists of the fallen Republic of Vietnam, the memoir of this day was more like a day where the red terror began. I'd stop talking about this divide.

How would this 2 September play any role in the upcoming Saudi Arabia-Vietnam confrontation? Well, independence day is something that would mark a new beginning of a nation. For football teams, the independence day is very meaningful, as it provides the invisible power for these teams to progress. That's why it's special.

We can see this with the United States soccer team in the 1994 FIFA World Cup as hosts, they played Brazil in the round of sixteen on a very special occasion: 4th of July - the day the Declaration of Independence (Hồ Chí Minh's version was greatly influenced from this) was announced. The U.S. lost 0-1, but demonstrated a brave performance against a very powerful Brazilian side, even playing with a one-man advantage. Or most recently, Greece played out a glorious 1-1 draw to Spain also in the 2022 World Cup campaign right in Spanish soil, the match was played on 25 March, the same day the Greeks declared war against the oppressive Ottoman Empire in 1823, effectively made it the national day of Greece.

Unsurprisingly, lights appear at the end of the tunnel: the reunification of Russian-born goalkeeper Lev Dang (Đặng Văn Lâm) with the team after two-year hiatus. Lev is the leading goalkeeper of the Vietnamese team since 2017. Then, when we were dealing with the heat of the desert, Saudi Arabia suffered a blow when its captain, the most feared playmaker Salman Al-Faraj, was forced to leave the camp due to the death of his grandma on 31 August, thus potentially unavailable to play in the first match against Vietnam due to Islamic ritual of requiring a person to mourn the dead for three days (with another 40 days could be added). Without Al-Faraj against Vietnam, Renard was forced to revise the tactics in case of Al-Faraj's another possible absence. Given Saudi Arabia's struggle when they played without Al-Faraj or he didn't perform at his best, and Renard's open reliance on Al-Faraj, it was a strange gift for us. Don't know if God really plays this around.

The overwhelming sentiment toward the game however wasn't so positive for many Vietnamese compatriots. Most expected that Vietnam could gain only a draw at last, since the winning chance is zero. But we don't even know what will come next. The ball has not rolled, and the chance is standing. Of course, Vietnam is considered inferior to Saudi Arabia, but there is still room for a shock. Especially, when you realise, it will be played on 2 September, the day where most Vietnamese speak about their independence. Everything could occur.