Dinh Bac, Nguyen Luc, and the 'variables' of youth football

Last weekend, a Vietnamese football fanpage ignited a significant controversy when it shared a piece discussing whether SLNA had committed a serious error by losing two of the brightest young stars of today, Dinh Bac (U23 Vietnam) and Nguyen Luc (U17 Vietnam).

Almost immediately, another stream of opinion countered, arguing that Dinh Bac and Nguyen Luc might not necessarily be the same players they are now if they had remained with SLNA at this point.

The reality is that Dinh Bac was previously released by SLNA at age 14 due to limited physical size—he was only 1.50m tall at the time. However, Nguyen Luc was never trained at SLNA; this midfielder is a product of the VST academy, a community football center founded by former stars Van Sy Thuy and Van Sy Hung in Nghe An, which has long been considered a satellite center of Hanoi FC.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that SLNA truly missed out on these two talents, as Dinh Bac is now shining brightly from the U23 Vietnam team to CAHN Club and has a full chance to play a key role in the upcoming ASEAN Cup 2026, while Nguyen Luc has been the top pillar of the U17 Vietnam team for the past two years and was just voted the Best Player at the 2026 U17 Southeast Asian Championship.

Meanwhile, after the generation of Que Ngoc Hai, Phan Van Duc, and Pham Xuan Manh, SLNA currently has not introduced any standout talent capable of shining at national team levels. The two most notable players to emerge from the SLNA academy in recent times have been goalkeepers Nguyen Van Viet (The Cong Viettel) and Cao Van Binh (SLNA).

Looking at the issue more broadly, this is not necessarily a problem unique to SLNA, because the journey for a player to go from a young talent to a true star is an extremely long period filled with many variables. Therefore, SLNA's failure to see the development potential of Dinh Bac or letting Nguyen Luc slip away is, after all, quite normal.

The two years he took a break from football to study general education, along with the guidance and support from his teachers at Quang Nam Club, undoubtedly played a huge role in shaping the Dinh Bac of today. This might not have happened if Dinh Bac had stayed at SLNA and been promoted to the first team through the usual pathway at that club.

Similarly, from a very young age, Nguyen Luc was known as an extremely promising football talent. However, when he tried out for a renowned football academy, although he passed the professional evaluation due to his good game intelligence and technical skills, he was not selected because he was underage compared to the requirements of that year's recruitment course. That led to his journey at the VST academy.

This shows that predicting a player's development potential while they are still in their teenage years is a huge challenge. The history of Vietnamese football in particular, and world football in general, is not short of cases where talents "bloom early and fade early" or mature late.

The key to this story likely lies in the growth environment and the coach directly working with the player. If both factors are suitable, a true star will eventually emerge; otherwise, a young talent may remain forever undeveloped.

In this regard, Dinh Bac and Nguyen Luc have truly been fortunate to grow up in an environment perfectly suited to their abilities, allowing us to witness a pair of highly promising young stars as we see today.