When 'What Has to Come Will Come' Becomes a Verdict for Harry Kewell at Hanoi FC

On the penalty spot, the sound of the ball hitting the net rang out like an off-beat drum. I stood in the middle of the stands at Hang Day Stadium, my old stopwatch still hanging around my neck — the same stopwatch that once timed the sprint runs of a 17-year-old boy named Park Ji-hoon in Incheon, now timing the heartbeat of a completely different team. People score goals, I keep the beat. Neither ever repeats itself. When the referee's whistle ended 90 minutes at 1-1, Hanoi FC stepped into a penalty shootout against SHB Da Nang. Three minutes later, they were out of the National Cup. On the scoreboard, the numbers read 1-1, but in the hearts of the capital's fans, it was 3-4 in that fateful shootout — and the third consecutive defeat since the 2026-27 season began. But no number on the electronic board could tell the full story of the moment the capital team began to lose itself. The current context is not unfamiliar to anyone who has followed Vietnamese football for years: a traditional powerhouse, expected to challenge for the title, sinking into crisis from the very first rounds. Hanoi FC — the club that once dominated the V-League with multiple championships over more than a decade — has endured a forgettable run. They lost to Cong An TP.HCM. They lost to Song Lam Nghe An. And now defeat on penalties to the team from the coastal city of Da Nang. Three defeats, three wounds, and a coaching seat smoking beneath Harry Kewell. What gives this story its weight does not come from dry results. It lies in how a defeat reveals the psychology of an entire collective. In Kewell's post-match comments, one sentence made me pause: "What has to come will come." A phrase that is both philosophical and soaked in resignation. When a captain uses such words, it means he is mentally preparing for something bigger than a defeat. He is preparing for his own fate. The training ground is empty, I open my old diary, and I find myself 17 again. Football always moves in loops — never identical, but always with enough parallels to make an old man like me shudder. This year's Hanoi FC reminds me of the teams I once watched in Incheon: a club with potential, with stature, but besieged by its own expectations. The match against SHB Da Nang revealed a problem that was more mechanical than structural. Kewell admitted his team had created enough chances to avoid a penalty shootout. His words were striking: "When we didn't take our chances, we were pulled into a penalty shootout." That is the self-diagnosis of a coach looking directly at his team's problem — not in chance creation, but in finishing quality, composure in the box, and the ability to make the right decision at the most critical moments. This is an important signal that those who only look at the scoreline might miss. A team that was completely outplayed would have made different excuses — that they didn't create chances, that they were tactically outclassed. But Kewell did not say that. He spoke about waste. That means Hanoi FC's system, even in transition with a new coach, can still produce dangerous situations. The problem lies in the final step — where goals are either born or die. From the perspective of a beat keeper for nearly five decades, I call this "mistimed rhythm at decisive moments." In every match, there are moments when the game seems to pause, waiting for someone to make a bold decision. The team that holds its rhythm in those moments is usually the one that walks away with three points. Hanoi FC is different. They control the overall tempo, move the ball smoothly, but lose their cadence when facing the opponent's goal. This is what frustrates coaches most, because it cannot be fixed with a single pass or a specific pattern. It belongs to mentality, confidence, and individual quality. Back to Hang Day Stadium on that fateful evening. I remember the feeling in the stands when the referee pointed to the penalty spot. The stadium, which had witnessed so many glories of capital football, suddenly became tense as a drumstring. The shouts of Da Nang supporters mixed with the sighs of the home fans. For a moment, the entire history of the club seemed compressed into a series of run-ups from 11 meters. Now, let's talk about the shootout. From 11 meters, everything is almost beyond tactical control. Numerous statistical studies have shown that the result of a penalty shootout carries very little predictive value for a team's future form. A shootout can erase a great performance or turn a dull match into a historic victory. So when I look at Hanoi FC's "third consecutive defeat," I want to separate this one from the previous two. It belongs to the category of "random events" — not a reliable signal about team quality. But be careful with that line of thinking. If the shootout doesn't say much, then the two heavy defeats before it say a great deal. Reports described those two losses as "heavy defeats" — but no one revealed the specific scorelines. No one provided data on shots, possession, or dangerous counterattacks. It is all vague language, and in that vagueness, any story can be woven. This brings me to one of the most uncomfortable paradoxes of sports journalism: we tend to judge based on what we don't know, rather than what we do know. Someone might say Hanoi FC is collapsing tactically. But without match data, do we have the right to say that? I have witnessed teams losing heavily because of one bad day — a goalkeeper error, a controversial referee decision, three shots hitting the crossbar in one half. There are countless ways to lose heavily without collapsing structurally. The upcoming FIFA Days break is precisely the decisive silence. For a club in crisis, FIFA Days is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it is time to recover — physically, mentally, tactically. On the other hand, it is the most convenient moment for the board to execute a change on the coaching bench. When a coach is sacked mid-season, the fallout is often amplified by immediate disruption. But if the sacking happens during a league pause, the new coach has nearly two weeks to get familiar with the team, the dressing-room culture, and the board's demands. My experience with Asian clubs tells me: FIFA Days is when coaching-change rumors explode. And in Hanoi FC's case, precedent cannot be ignored. In recent seasons, the capital club has repeatedly replaced foreign coaches early in the campaign. That has become part of the club's governance culture — and a cold warning to anyone who sits in this hot seat. So the more important question is not whether Kewell will be sacked, but whether Hanoi FC's board has enough data to make a sound decision. The report never mentions Kewell's contract length. It never mentions termination clauses. If his contract allows for a low-cost dismissal, the chance of him leaving after just three matches rises significantly. If his contract is long-term with a heavy compensation clause, the board will have to think many more times. We are talking about a significant cost. Sacking a foreign coach, compensating the remainder of his contract, recruiting a new coach, signing an entirely new staff — that is a massive package in the financial context of Vietnamese football. And once you enter the coaching-change game, there is also what I call the "panic premium" — the amount clubs are willing to pay above market value to secure a big name under time pressure. In the modern V-League and beyond, the five-substitution rule has changed how we view matches. Instead of just making one or two late changes, coaches can now refresh nearly half the lineup. This turns the final 20 minutes into a real war of attrition — and the team with better squad depth usually gains the edge. Hanoi FC, whose squad was once considered the deepest in the V-League, is being eroded by that very depth because of the pressure to win. The more attacking players they throw on, the more space they leave for opponents to exploit — a familiar pattern for teams hungry for goals. For a club of Hanoi FC's stature, the National Cup is not just a secondary trophy. It is a ticket to the continental stage — the second path to an AFC Champions League or AFC Cup berth. Losing that path pushes the club further into a position where they must win the V-League, and that pressure makes the next matches even more tense. Kewell's comments in this context reveal a deep internal contradiction. On one hand, he says: "We must unite, be strong and recover." That is the voice of a leader trying to lift his players' spirits. On the other hand, he says: "Whatever has to come will come." That is the voice of a man who has begun to let go. In a dressing room that he himself admits has been "dealt a heavy blow," the second statement could be heard as an excuse for his own departure. Players are not deaf. They hear their coach mentally preparing to leave. And that does nothing to build a fighting collective. In football, calls for "unity" are often a lagging indicator — coaches usually call for unity after realizing division has crept into the dressing room. When a boat starts leaking, the captain only then shouts for everyone to row together. But perhaps what troubles me most is that this story extends beyond one club. It reflects a power shift underway in Vietnamese football. Clubs backed by police resources, like Cong An TP.HCM, or those with large corporate support, are steadily closing the gap with traditional clubs like Hanoi FC. They have financial muscle, they have ambition, and they are building deeper squads. When a capital team suffers a heavy defeat against one of these rivals, it is not just about a single match. It is about the eroding status of an old power. Vietnamese football has also produced remarkable young talents from Hanoi FC's own academy. However, one of the biggest temptations for traditional clubs is overusing young talents when the team falls into crisis. When the pressure of results weighs down, people easily throw an 18-year-old onto the pitch and expect him to save an entire collective. I have seen too many cases like this — young players burned out early, pushed into the adult game before their bodies and minds are ready. If Hanoi FC is not careful, these dark days could leave lasting scars on the next generation. I want to swim against the tide of public opinion, where people demand decisive action: change the coach, change the squad, change everything. But let us weigh the evidence. Three defeats, one of which came from a shootout — an event that any serious data analyst must view as almost random. Hanoi FC's early-season fixture list was among the toughest in the V-League: they had to face Cong An TP.HCM, a rising force with strong financial resources, and Song Lam Nghe An, a top-ranked youth development center with an unmistakable identity. The "crisis" story of Hanoi FC is being built on an extremely thin foundation of information. No one has published the specific scorelines of the two earlier defeats. No one has provided a single statistic about shots, expected goals, or pressing intensity. All we have is media exaggeration and the oversized shadow of a name: Harry Kewell — former Liverpool star, a magnet for media attention. Ask yourself: if the coach in the hot seat were a nameless domestic coach, would this story get as much heat? Certainly not. That is where my concern peaks. Are we reacting to results on the pitch, or to the coach's name? If the answer is the name, then we may soon witness a wrong decision — one driven by media pressure, not by a deep understanding of football. The coming silence will tell us everything. Hanoi FC can use FIFA Days to heal their spirit, or turn it into a springboard for a dressing-room revolution. The answer will come not from flowery statements, but from quiet decisions in the boardroom. Incheon taught me to watch matches with my ears first, then my eyes. So I will listen: the footsteps on the training ground, the whispers in the corridors, and the pulse of a club standing at a crossroads — keep the flame alive, or let it die.