Choking up remembering HAGL

Compassionate sadness

Not only are Tuan Anh and Van Toan the most outstanding talents of the first class of HAGL JMG football academy, they are also the top brightest talents of Vietnamese football in the past few years.

Yesterday afternoon (June 25), after being crowned V-League champions with Nam Dinh Club, they were very happy. Van Toan jumped up and down like a child, he brought his whole family from his hometown Hai Duong to Thanh Nam to share the joy with him. But it was Van Toan himself, after a moment of joy, who shared very honestly: "I am very sad because I have never won the V-League with HAGL Club".

Van Toan finally won the national championship title.

Van Toan celebrates with Nam Dinh fans

But that is not at HAGL Club

HAGL is where Van Toan and his teammates of the same age started their football career, including Cong Phuong, Tuan Anh, Xuan Truong, Hong Duy, Van Thanh, Dong Trieu, Minh Vuong... Now, they have different destinations, different paths. Well, that is also a part of professional football, the story of coming and going, people coming and going is an inevitable part of the cycle of professional football. Only, deep down, these players still desire to lift the Vietnamese football championship together, in the very place where they grew up, shaped their style and became famous. The championship, if any, with HAGL, is their own thanks to Mr. Duc and to the land where they became people and talented. They regret that they have not been able to do that with the mountain town football team.

Control your emotions

That was also Tuan Anh's mood. That was also the reason why last night, after the laughter, Tuan Anh quietly took the gold medal off his neck, trying to restrain himself from touching the championship trophy. That was probably the moment Tuan Anh remembered Mr. Duc, wanted to show respect to this boss and for HAGL Club, which is certainly always in his heart.

Tuan Anh is still the same, he always seems older and more depressed than his teammates of the same age. Even when Cong Phuong left HAGL to play for Yokohama FC in Japan, Van Toan and Hong Duy went to Nam Dinh, Van Thanh joined the Hanoi Police team (CAHN), Tuan Anh still firmly stayed at HAGL. He stayed only to help Mr. Duc's team stay in the league.

Tuan Anh also has joy in Nam Dinh Club shirt

Audiences in Thanh Nam celebrate the day Tuan Anh is crowned with Nam Dinh Club

Tuan Anh only reluctantly left the mountain town team to join Nam Dinh in the middle of the 2023-2024 season, because... Mr. Duc wanted it that way, because both Mr. Duc and Tuan Anh's new team, Nam Dinh, felt sorry for Tuan Anh's talent. Such a talent would be a waste if he didn't have any specific titles throughout his career.

Now Tuan Anh, Van Toan, Hong Duy have won the V-League championship with Nam Dinh, Van Thanh won the title with CAHN team a season before. It is clear that when the talents of HAGL left, they quickly found a suitable destination. But like Van Toan said, he wished he had won the V-League championship with HAGL.

If only Mr. Duc’s team had not fallen too far behind the movement of domestic football in recent years. Or suppose that before the players of this talented generation pass the other side of their careers in a few years, HAGL can recover, have enough financial capacity to recruit them back to the mountain town, so that they can together “hunt” for the V-League championship in the coming period, how great that would be!

But the V-League cup is also a worthy achievement for both Van Toan and Tuan Anh.

That could also be the end, the most beautiful end of a generation of players who have made many hearts flutter in Vietnamese football over the past ten years. To be fair, although there have been ups and downs, ups and downs, like the appearance of Tuan Anh, Van Toan, Cong Phuong, Xuan Truong, Hong Duy, Van Thanh... in 2013 - 2014, it helped bring audiences back to domestic football fields, after a period when Vietnamese football stagnated and fans sometimes lost faith in domestic football. That generation deserves a happy ending!

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/khoanh-khac-lang-dong-trong-ngay-van-toan-tuan-anh-len-dinh-nghen-nghen-nho-ve-hagl-185240626132027457.htm