Nguyen Xuan Son’s outstanding excellence from the V.League to the national team in 2024 overshadows all his colleagues. Therefore, the fact that this striker is excluded from the race for the 2024 Vietnamese Golden Ball – as he is still considered a foreign player at the time of the announcement of the nomination list – makes the election difficult to predict.
The list of nominees for the men’s Ballon d’Or title was announced in early November. Only 11 of these players took part in the journey to win the AFF 13 Cup with the Vietnamese team. The remaining names don’t get the chance to compete due to lack of national team achievements, while no one excels at club level to compensate.
The Vietnamese team’s standout players at the 2024 AFF Cup – not including Xuan Son – are Nguyen Hoang Duc, Nguyen Quang Hai, Nguyen Tien Linh, Nguyen Thanh Chung, Pham Xuan Manh and Doan Ngoc Tan.
Hoang Duc is the reigning Vietnamese Golden Ball.
However, Ngoc Tan is not on the nomination list. This is an unfortunate omission, as this midfielder has both national team and club titles. He was the captain of the Thanh Hoa team that won the National Cup last season and played an important role in the Vietnamese team.
Quang Hai, Thanh Chung, Xuan Manh did not have good results at the club. The competition for Vietnam’s Ballon d’Or title probably leaves only Tien Linh and Hoang Duc.
Since the start of the 2023-2024 V.League season until today, no national striker has scored more goals than Tien Linh. The Bình dương striker has a total of 15 goals in Vietnam’s first division tournament.
-Compared to all Vietnamese players, Tien Linh’s goal record in 2024 is only inferior to Xuan Son.
Especially in 2024, according to Transfermarkt statistics, Tien Linh’s goalscoring record (13 goals) is only lower than that of Xuan Son (27 goals), equal to that of Nguyen Van Quyet. In the 2024 AFF Cup, Tien Linh scored 4 goals, including 2 penalties and 2 non-key goals in matches against weak opponents).
Meanwhile, Hoang Duc is the captain of the Vietnamese team in the two most important matches – against Thailand in the first and second legs of the final. Midfielder No. 2 is the player who has played the most matches in the Vietnamese team (14 minutes according to Soccerway statistics, excluding compensation time in matches). In the only match against the Philippines, Hoang Duc was a substitute and only played the second half.
In general, Hoang Duc and Tien Linh do not differ too much in terms of achievements and performances throughout the year, both in the Vietnamese team and in the club. Therefore, the Vietnam Golden Ball 2024 will be a very unpredictable competition.
Tieu Minh
