CAHN's 70th Anniversary: Quang Hai and Nguyen Filip Stay in the Dressing Room Before the V-League Restart

On the small stage of the ceremony, among the worn-out shirts of The Cong and Cong An Ha Noi hung with care, there was a moment almost nobody noticed. An old player with grey hair stood up, raised a hand to greet an old teammate, then quietly sat down beside a young player wearing the Cong An Ha Noi shirt today. No fireworks, no swelling music. Just a nod. That was October 10, 2026, the day the club marked 70 years since its founding and received the First Class Labor Medal. In the front row, Nguyen Quang Hai and goalkeeper Nguyen Filip were present. Neither featured in the Vietnam national team squad for the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026. Quang Hai was called up but asked to stay behind because of injury. Filip was not called up. While the whole football public turned its eyes to the regional tournament, two names that should have been at the centre of the news appeared instead at an internal club event. More than thirty years behind the microphone, I have learned one thing: sometimes the real story sits with the man outside the pitch, not the man who scores. Cong An Ha Noi carries a particular identity. This is a club of the Ministry of Public Security, carrying the tradition of the armed forces. The ceremony drew five football generations: former Cong An Ha Noi, Cong An Hai Phong, The Cong, M.A.Y Vietnam and a supporters' team. It was a deliberate act of storytelling: the club presented its current squad while staking a claim to the heritage of an entire network of police and army football — the historical bedrock of Vietnamese football. The club dates its founding to 2026. Seventy years later, on October 10, 2026, it held the anniversary ceremony alongside the award of the First Class Labor Medal. For a club with police roots, this is state recognition, and it says a great deal about how this club operates. Back to those two names in the front row. Based on my experience watching these matches, a club entering the closing stretch of a season with its captain and first-choice goalkeeper training in full always holds a small but real edge. While rivals release players to the national team and suffer the FIFA virus, Cong An Ha Noi keeps Quang Hai and Filip at home. This matters more than it looks. The V-League is paused to make room for the regional tournament, and when it returns the schedule will be dense. Clubs that lose many pillars to the national team must rotate while those pillars run on empty. Cong An Ha Noi, with its captain and goalkeeper at home, enters that stretch with a fitness advantage the table does not show. But that edge comes with a question mark. The report does not say what Quang Hai's injury is, how severe it is, or when he returns. The most creative midfielder at the club missing a national-team camp could be a restorative rest, or it could be a genuine fitness problem. For the man wearing the armband, both possibilities are worth watching. Filip is a different case. A naturalised goalkeeper once seen as the first choice between the posts for the national team, he was not called up. That is a selection decision, not an eligibility dispute. But for supporters it opens a familiar debate: who deserves the gloves, and which criteria are being prioritised? For a goalkeeper, missing a national call-up can be a chance to focus on the club. For a naturalised player, it carries an extra layer of meaning about squad competition and the national team's personnel direction. Placed side by side, the two events reveal a clearer picture. Cong An Ha Noi sits at the top of the V-League wage pyramid. The evidence is not a transfer fee but the squad composition: Quang Hai, Tran Dinh Trong, Filip — all national-team-calibre names. A club only keeps a group like that with superior resources. A men's football festival, and I quietly slip women's records into every bulletin. This time was the same. Beside the shirts of the men's generations, the story of women's football within the public-security system is still barely told. At 56, I still ask one question: where are the women scoring in this game? A 70-year ceremony was a chance to answer, but the answer is still unfinished. This is where I want to speak plainly. A lavish anniversary ceremony right before the V-League restart is a communications move, not a footballing move. Heritage value can be converted into commercial value, into supporter affection, into internal belief. But it scores no goals. And there is one detail that needs verifying. The club dates its founding to 2026, making 2026 its 70th year. But the current legal entity of Cong An Ha Noi is understood to be a recent re-establishment. The 70-year lineage is therefore more symbolic than legal. That is not wrong — football lives on memory — but supporters should know which story they are being told. What stands out is the claim to five generations of heritage, including The Cong. In the V-League's soft-power game, whoever owns the police-army heritage gains an edge in building identity. Cong An Ha Noi is betting on that card. The state-ownership model raises its own question. Clubs with institutional backing tend to operate under soft budget constraints — money comes from the institution, not only the market. This creates stability, but it also creates a difference in the rules of the game between them and privately owned clubs. There is no breach here. Only a question about the league's competitive balance. In the dressing room, the picture is fairly calm. Quang Hai is clearly identified as captain and as the keeper of traditional values. He speaks of pride at being part of this collective, of the duty to carry on the sacred values left by his elders. A captain publicly praising the previous generation is also a legitimacy signal: the current squad presents itself as a worthy heir. The voice of the dressing room. That is always the first thing I look for, because it shows whether a club is genuinely healthy or merely performing. A ceremony where leadership, coaching staff, players and former players all sit together at least shows structural stability. When the old wave recedes, I step onto a new platform — the voice is still my own. After seventy years, Cong An Ha Noi is retelling its story in a different language: the language of brand, of heritage, of internal belief. The question I carry away from the ceremony is not what this club won in the past, but whether a heritage guarded this carefully can convert into concrete points when the V-League returns. Seventy years is a long road. But the new season has only just begun.