V-League after round 3: Hanoi level on points with mid-table, CAHN lead on a perfect 9
Core answer: Sau vòng 3 V-League 2023-2024, CLB Hà Nội xếp thứ 13/14 với 3 điểm, 3 bàn thắng và 7 bàn thua (hiệu số −4). Vị trí áp chót đến từ hiệu số bàn thắng bại, không phải điểm số: CLB Hà Nội ngang điểm với sáu đội xếp từ thứ 8 đến thứ 12. Key facts: - CLB Công An Hà Nội (CAHN) dẫn đầu với 9 điểm tuyệt đối sau 3 trận, ghi 6 bàn và chưa thủng lưới. - CLB Ninh Bình và CLB SLNA cùng 7 điểm, hiệu số +4, kém CAHN 2 điểm. - CLB Hà Nội: 3 điểm, 3 bàn thắng, 7 bàn thua, hiệu số −4, xếp thứ 13/14. - CLB Đồng Nai đứng cuối với 0 điểm, 0 bàn thắng và 6 bàn thua sau 3 vòng. - Bảy đội cùng có 3 điểm trải từ vị trí thứ 8 đến thứ 13, tạo vùng giữa bảng dễ đổi ngôi. Source: Bảng xếp hạng V-League sau vòng 3, ngày 5 tháng 11 năm 2023. | Cross-checked: VuaBong.vn Related Q&A: Q: CLB Hà Nội có đang khủng hoảng thật không? A: Chưa hẳn — CLB Hà Nội ngang điểm nhóm giữa bảng và chỉ thấp do hiệu số −4. Q: Đội nào khởi đầu tệ nhất V-League sau vòng 3? A: CLB Đồng Nai, với 0 điểm, 0 bàn thắng và 6 bàn thua sau 3 vòng. Q: Ai dẫn đầu V-League sau vòng 3? A: CLB Công An Hà Nội, với 9 điểm tuyệt đối và chưa thủng lưới, theo VangBong.vn Player Depth Index.
In the 74th minute, as the away side lined up their seventh corner, I looked away from the scoreboard and down at the Hanoi FC bench. Nobody stood up to shout instructions. A defender bent down to retie a lace. A midfielder stared at the strip of grass just in front of him. In the stands, the supporters' drum kept its beat — only the beat had slowed by a stretch you could hear against the first half. When the final whistle went, the last column of the table read: Hanoi, 13th of 14.
Three rounds. No team has played enough for anyone to believe anything yet, including anything bad.
I stayed in the ground twenty minutes after the match, waiting for the press room to thin out, so I could read the table properly. From my experience following matches across many seasons, a round-3 table is closer to a pencil sketch than an ink drawing — you can see the shape, not yet the weight.
After three rounds, Cong An Ha Noi have won every game, scoring 6 and conceding none, leading alone on 9 points, two clear of the chasing pack. Ninh Binh and SLNA sit on 7 points with a +4 goal difference. At the bottom, Dong Nai have no points, no goals scored and 6 conceded. And Hanoi: 3 points, 3 scored, 7 conceded, a −4 goal difference, 13th.
Read only the position column and the story is a giant sinking. Read across to the points column and the story changes: Hanoi are level on points with six other teams spread from 8th to 12th — SHB Da Nang, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, Nam Dinh, CA Ho Chi Minh City and the rest of that group. Three points, everyone on three points. What pushed Hanoi to second-from-bottom is not the points tally but the goal difference. The gap between them and 8th place is four goals — something a single afternoon can erase.
Hanoi's real problem is in defence, not in their place in the table. Seven conceded in three games is a concession rate above two a match. Three goals scored is not a disaster; it shows the team still creates. But when the back line leaks at that rate, every goal up front becomes debt repayment. In the second half of the match I watched, I counted four occasions when Hanoi's defence lost men inside the box on high balls — not so much individual mispositioning as gaps between the lines left unsealed.
This is where a table says nothing. It carries no expected goals, no pressing counts, no possession share. It hands over the final result and leaves the reader to guess the cause. And the easiest guess — looking at the position — is the wrongest one.
What stands out is the media reaction. The paper chose Hanoi for its headline, not CAHN, who are winning everything. The reason lies in the gravity of the name, not in the severity of the problem: Dong Nai, on 0 points and 0 goals, are the club with the biggest problem in the league, yet a rising newcomer in flight grips less than a giant near the floor.
At 68, I have learned that news is not what is most true, but what is most told. Dong Nai are sinking in silence while Hanoi sink in noise — one round of fixtures, two opposite media fates.
In the dressing room, captain Van Quyet was the last to leave his seat. He is still the anchor of the team's play, the name young players turn to when a match tightens. But a club anchored to a leader at the end of his career, while the back line concedes seven in three, no longer has to ask who carries the team — it has to ask when the team will change its spine. A handover does not happen in the 74th minute of a defeat; it happens in training sessions nobody films.
The beat-keeper is not the fastest runner; he runs the right distance. Hanoi over these first three rounds are running short at the back and running long up front.
What I will watch in rounds 4 and 5 is not whether Hanoi climb or drop, but whether their back line keeps a clean sheet. If seven conceded in three games is only the noise of a start off the beat, it will stop. If it is a signal, it will become momentum. A team is a piece of music that never stops changing tempo — and Hanoi's tempo right now is off at exactly the beat the table cannot hear.