The USSR Flow: From the Glorious Past of Soviet Football to the Successful Pulse of Vietnamese Football

I have spent twenty-three years observing football from the touchline and the stands. In mid-May, as short passes at the Hang Day Sports Center were still being meticulously rehearsed, I realized something: behind every pulse of Vietnamese football today, there is a historical current carrying the USSR trademark that still operates, quietly and persistently. This journey did not begin with a grand final but with schools, coaching training classes, and a generation of Russians who left an indelible mark on Southeast Asian football. When my colleagues and I cover youth tournaments in Southeast Asia, the recurring question is not "which squad is stronger," but "which operational model is more sustainable." For Vietnamese football, the answer might lie in a special sporting geopolitical space: the Soviet Union. The dominance of Soviet football in the 1960s and 1980s was not merely golden pages in the European football museum. It became part of the fabric of how the Vietnamese train players, build leagues, and shape football philosophy to this day. The foundation for the Vietnam-Soviet football link originated in a special historical period. In the 1960s and 1980s, Soviet football was not just a powerhouse but a school with distinct characteristics. Look at the four European Championship final appearances by the Soviet national team in 2026, 2026, 2026, and 2026. At the first Euro in 2026, they won. By Euro 2026, under coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi, they reached the final again. That was an era when Soviet football was admired worldwide, not only for results but for a style full of strength and tactical discipline. Within clubs, two distinct schools demonstrated the diversity of Soviet playing styles. Dynamo Moscow pursued technical combination with short, intricate passes, while Spartak Moscow favored long balls over the top with high speed. This diversity created a rich tactical landscape, and from these schools emerged a generation of players and coaches trained to carry football philosophy across the globe. Specific data shows the class of this football nation: Lev Yashin, the legendary goalkeeper of Dynamo Moscow and the Soviet national team, remains the only goalkeeper in history to win the Ballon d'Or, in 2026. Alongside him were names like Valery Voronin and Eduard Streltsov, a talented forward so highly rated that many believed his career could have changed the course of football history had he not encountered legal troubles in the mid-1960s. After Yashin came Rinat Dasayev, who finished second in the 2026 Ballon d'Or voting, continuing the strong tradition in goalkeeping. The dominance of Soviet football in the 1960s and 1980s directly led to the training of top Vietnamese coaches and managers. Numerous leading Vietnamese football coaches and administrators had the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union during this period. According to documents I gathered from conversations with football history researchers, sending technical officials to Soviet training centers was a policy promoted throughout these two decades. The result was a cadre of coaches with solid theoretical foundations, learned from the very people who built the top football schools. Among those outstanding students, Tran Duy Long stands out as a typical example. He was among the first coaches systematically trained in the Soviet Union and later contributed greatly to Vietnam's youth development. But the person who left the most distinct mark in the modern era, the one operating Vietnamese football today, is Tran Quoc Tuan – also trained in the Soviet football environment. Tran Quoc Tuan, currently Chairman of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF), is a clear testament to the continuation of USSR philosophy. Tran Quoc Tuan's strategic approach mirrors Russian football principles, particularly investment in domestic league quality and school football. The focus is not on copying a playing style but on learning how to operate an entire football ecosystem. The greatest lesson Vietnamese students brought back from the Soviet Union was not exactly how to play but how to organize – building from the roots, from schools, from youth leagues, to professional competitions. Watching training sessions of several youth teams in Hanoi, I noticed an interesting detail. When focusing on small-group combination drills, young coaches frequently emphasize maintaining the "passing rhythm" – keeping the ball circulating at a steady pace with minimal touches. They tell their students: "If you can pass with one touch to keep the rhythm, don't pass with two." This philosophy carries the color of the Soviet short-passing school – a style based on mobility and precision in tight spaces. Soviet football was not one-dimensional. In Spartak Moscow's matches, spectators saw long passes over the top to exploit the speed of wingers. In Dynamo Moscow's play, one saw patience in small combinations in the midfield zone. We, those working in Vietnamese football, learned both schools. But more importantly, we learned to combine technique and physique as a unified whole. Listening to the rhythm from the observation seat, fans may not notice, but where tactics begin to find their rhythm, that is when Soviet principles operate most naturally. There is a fact I always use in my analyses: Soviet football achieved near-absolute excellence in talent selection. With sports schools spanning from Moscow to Kiev, Tbilisi to Minsk, the Soviet Union built an incredibly solid school sports foundation. Fifteen different republics each had youth football training systems, producing outstanding players not only in Russia but also in Ukraine, Georgia, and many other nations. This is the "school football" system that Vietnam is striving to develop under VFF leadership. When mentioning learning from Russia, many modern fans feel skeptical. They look at the 1-4 loss to Thailand in the 2026 AFF Cup semifinal and question: "Learn from Russia? We lost to a regional team, so how can we learn from a declining football nation?" This reminds me of an incident in 2026 when FC Seoul unexpectedly switched from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2. I scrolled through 127 comments on a Seoul fans' forum. 68% supported the change, 23% expressed concern, and 9% were angry. I wrote the article "Does Number 10 Dejan Damjanovic Lose His Position?" based on those emotions; the article was later shared over 3,200 times. Similar skepticism arises when asking whether Russia still deserves to be a model for learning. These doubts are valid in a modern football world where Spain dominates with possession play while England and France possess some of the wealthiest leagues on the planet. However, examining how Tran Quoc Tuan operates reveals wisdom in selection: not copying wholesale but applying only what is most essential – namely, patient construction from the roots. What fans don't see in later generations is the philosophical foundation that existed long ago. Coach Park Hang-seo is Korean, but it was the players trained within the football foundation built by Soviet-trained students who shone under his tenure. Quang Hai, the hero of Vietnam's U23 at Changzhou, emerged from the Hanoi FC academy – an academy operated according to principles traceable to Soviet philosophy. A little-known fact: Nguyen Quang Hai and many teammates that year were products of national youth tournaments organized consistently by the VFF, where they gained experience against strong domestic teams rather than focusing solely on the national team as many other countries do. Watching the replay of the 2026 SEA Games final, I recalled an image that moved me as much as the Kazan moment. It was the image of a young fan sitting and crying in the stands before the final ended, overwhelmed with happiness. When asked, the child said he was crying because his team always made him proud. He wasn't crying about victory – the match hadn't ended – but crying because he found a community and a belief to belong to. In Kazan that year, I witnessed the pain of a team eliminated despite winning. I still empathize with that sorrow. Football is never just about the score; it always exists in emotional undercurrents. Those who cried in Kazan did not see failure; they saw faith reborn. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a technical director of a V.League club about the league's development. He confided: "If we want Vietnamese players to perform well at the continental level, we must improve the quality of domestic competitions. To do that, we need good players. And to have good players, we need a serious training system." This thinking clearly reflects the development principles that Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan is pursuing – a strong philosophy that the health of the national team is determined by the quality of the domestic league. Football is an ecosystem. To help young sprouts grow, one must nurture the soil and care for the water. The return of two homelands – Russia and Russian football – takes the form of a philosophical legacy being transmitted. Vietnam doesn't have naturalized Russian players or a Russian coach, but Vietnam learned something far more precious from Russia – how to organize and build. When I sit at the training ground watching young players from a Hanoi academy run endurance drills, when I witness a meticulously organized tactical session of a national youth team, I recognize that the Soviet imprint still appears quite distinctly. Many will argue this is too nostalgic a perspective, unsuitable for a rapidly modernizing football nation. But throughout my writing career, I've learned that no football nation develops sustainably if it loses its roots. From lessons about Dynamo Moscow's short-passing school to Spartak Moscow's long-ball school, Vietnamese football has not copied verbatim but has "Vietnamized" these philosophies to suit its people and culture. This is the core point: not becoming anyone's copy but becoming the best version of oneself. The journey remains unfinished. Those of us sitting in the observation seat will continue following every pulse, every pass, documenting what is most authentic about Vietnamese football within its historical current. The final question remains open: not whether Vietnam should continue learning from the Russian school, but how future generations, born in the digital age of modern football, can preserve core values while adapting to new contexts. In a world where national teams increasingly resemble each other tactically, football nations that know how to return to their origins will have the strongest identities. And then, people won't ask whether Russian football still has influence. They will look at the success of a football nation with identity and ask why they can't do the same. Part of the answer will lie in a long journey called Russian football – Vietnamese football, still being written.