Viettel Football Club (), simply known as Viettel FC, is a

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

ese professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

. The club belongs to the Viettel Sports Centre, a part of

Viettel Group The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (), less formally recognized as Viettel Group () or simply Viettel, is a Vietnamese multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam. Viettel is the largest telecommuni ...

and competes in the

V.League 1 The V.League 1 ( vi, Giải bóng đá vô địch quốc gia, lit=National Football League), also called Night Wolf V.League 1 due to sponsorship reasons, is the top professional Association football, football league in Vietnam, controlled by ...

, the top tier of the Vietnamese football league system. Viettel, formerly known as Thể Công, is one of the most widely supported clubs and also the most successful club in Vietnamese football history, having won a record 20 national titles, including nine consecutively from 1971 to 1979. The club has also contributed many great players to the national team. Viettel's traditional colour is red, leading to the nickname ''Cơn lốc đỏ (Red Tornado)''. As Thể Công, they held a long-standing rivalry with Công an Hà Nội (a club run by the Hanoi Police, not to be confused with recently rebranded Công an Hà Nội), known as the "Hanoi Derby" or the "Vietnamese Clasico", from the mid-1950s to their dissolution in 2002. Nowadays, the derby is contested between Viettel and

Hanoi FC Hanoi Football Club () is a Vietnamese professional Association football, football club based in Hanoi, Vietnam that competes in the V.League 1. The club currently plays in the V.League 1. Hanoi FC was founded in 2006 as T&T Hanoi Football Clu ...

History

Thể Công period

1954-1968: Formation and rising

On September 23, 1954, according to the appointment of the Director of the General Department of Politics at that time, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, ''đoàn công tác Thể dục Thể thao Quân đội'' (Thể Công) was established. Thể Công is short for ''Thể dục Thể thao Công tác Đội'' and was managed by

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

. The first Thể Công team include 23 people of the cadre from ''The Army Officer College No1'' and was divided into three teams: 11 football, 5 basketball and 6 volleyball players. In addition, all three teams also have a special reserve player, ''Ly Duc Kim'', who knows how to play football, both basketball and volleyball, and has the ability to be a nurse and good logistics. Kim also has the above support functions. The first main lineup of The Cong football team include: ''Lê Nhâm; Nguyễn Văn Hiếu; Phạm Ngọc Quế; Nguyễn Thiêm; Ngô Xuân Quýnh; Phạm Mạnh Soạn; Trương Vinh Thăng; Nguyễn Bá Khánh; Nguyễn Văn Bưởi (capital); Nguyễn Thông (player-coach); Vũ Tâm (as Phạm Vinh)''. Beside, ''Nguyen Van Thanh'' (as '' Tí Bồ'') was joined later, was a famous player of the first Vietnamese footballers generation in the 1930s to 1950s period. More than a month later, on October 25, in the first football match held since the liberation of Hanoi capital at

Hang Day Stadium Hang or Hanging may refer to: People * Choe Hang (disambiguation), various people * Luciano Hang (born 1962/1963), Brazilian billionaire businessman * Ren Hang (disambiguation), various people Law * Hanging, a form of capital punishment Arts, e ...

, The Cong had the first match in its history against Tran Hung Dao University team, including players from the capital's working class. The team won with a score of 1 - 0 with the only goal of the match being scored in the 30th second by the striker captain ''Nguyen Van Buoi''. In 1955, Vietnam's first football tournament was held in

Hai Phong Haiphong ( vi, Hải Phòng, ), or Hải Phòng, is a major industrial city and the third-largest in Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the Red River delta. Haiphong wa ...

with the name '' Hoà Bình League'' (precursor of

), Thể Công was participated with two teams A and B. Both teams won championships of two A and B classes. In 1956, for the first time, the ''Democratic Republic of Vietnam national football team'' was convened for international duty. At the age of 38, ''Ti Bo'' was still called to the national team along with nine other The Cong players to participate in his first tour in China. He became one of the first players of the Vietnamese team and the oldest Vietnamese national player ever. During the following years, Thể Công won the champions in 1956 and 1958. At that time, Công An Hải Phòng and Công An Hà Nội has been their main and traditional rival in Northern Vietnam football. Three clubs played are also the founding members in the highest Vietnamese system league in the mid-1950s and became the Big 3 clubs in the early Vietnam football period. In 1950s and 1960s, Công An Hải Phòng was far more successful, winning ten championships, including four consecutively from 1965 to 1968, making the club became North Vietnam's record champion. Thể Công took over the title more than six years later in 1976, when they won their tenth championship in 1970 and also their last nation league trophy. The duel between Thể Công and Công An Hải Phòng was referred to as the ''Northern Derby'', but the ''Hanoi Derby'' with Công An Hà Nội was more attention because they are always counter the ''Red Tornado'' by good defense system, who reached the champions twice in 1962 and 1964.

1969-2000: Golden decade: Dominance in the league

Since the 1969s to 1979s, The Cong had always dominated in national league with 10 championships in Vietnam's A Class National League, including nine consecutively from 1971 to 1979. During that time, the typical generation of The Cong players were '' Nguyễn Thế Anh (Ba Den), Nguyễn Cao Cường,

Quan Trong Hung Quán is the Pinyin romanization of the Chinese family names / and , as well as a customary spelling of (pinyin: Guān). All written forms of the name are rare enough that they do not appear in the list of the 100 most common Chinese surnames. ...

Vương Tiến Dũng Vương Tiến Dũng (born 1949 in Bắc Giang, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese football coach. After retiring from his playing career, during which he played for Thể Công (also known as the Army club) and the Vietnamese national side, Vương turned ...

Nguyễn Trọng Giáp Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

, Vu Manh Hai,''... with the majority being young players who went to long-term training in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

in 1967 and when they returned home, they were the most outstanding and typical players in the country. After the country was unified and had the National Championship (the predecessor of the V-League), The Cong has always been the strongest football club in Vietnam with 5 championships. The Cong players have always been the core of the national team and contributed many players in the golden generation of Vietnamese football such as goalkeeper Tran Tien Anh, Do Manh Dung, Nguyen Manh Cuong, and

Nguyen Hong Son Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

, Truong Viet Hoang,

Nguyen Duc Thang Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

, Pham Nhu Thuan, Trieu Quang Ha, Dang Phuong Nam, Vu Cong Tuyen... The Cong was the longest standing team in the V-League until the team was relegated in 2004. (In 1979, The Cong did not participate in the tournament). At that times, Công An Hà Nội was still a main rivals have been the clubs who put up the strongest fight against its national dominance. Matches with CAHN was more than a local derby with many classic wins, draws and losses. Due to Thể Công being traditionally hard to beat for CAHN though they had no any trophies for a long times.

2004-2008: Relegation and promoted back

In 2004, exactly 50 years after its foundation, Thể Công football club finished V-League at 11th place (out of 12) and was relegated to the lower division. The team performed poorly partly due to the policy of not recruiting foreign soldiers, in contrast to all other teams at that time. In the following season, the club changed its name to The Cong Viettel (

Viettel The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (), less formally recognized as Viettel Group () or simply Viettel, is a Vietnamese multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam. Viettel is the largest telecommuni ...

is the Army Electronics and Telecommunication Corporation) and is partially managed by this unit. However, many comments suggested that the club should return to its old name. On January 19, 2007, the club finally gained the right to be promoted back to V-League after winning over Tay Ninh 5–3. Immediately thereafter, the official team name was reversed back to Thể Công.

2009-2010: The end and transfer

On September 22, 2009 (before the 55th anniversary of the establishment of Thể Công) the Ministry of Defense decided to change Thể Công to Viettel. In November 2009, the

decided to remove name "Thể Công" out of football in Vietnam, and transfer all management of football club to

. On September 23, 2011 on the occasion of the 57th anniversary of the establishment of the club, hundreds of officials, players, and fans of all generations who were once members of The Cong decided to launch a "campaign" to collect 1 million signatures across the country to petition the Ministry of Defense to regain the title ''Thể Công''. However, Viettel Telecom Corporation is not very interested in this reception. Facing the risk of being dissolved, the acting director of the Center at that time, ''Nguyen Thanh Hai'', asked the leaders of ''Viettel Telecom Corporation'' to allow the maintenance of the ''Viettel Football Center'' and pledged to bring results in a year. In the 2010 football season, the Center's teams reached the final round of the youth tournaments. In 2011, the Center won 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze Medal in youth tournaments, officially gaining the right to exist. In the 2012 football season, the official squad of Viettel Football Center won the championship with the same rank at the Vietnam Third Division Football Championship and won a place in the Second Division since the 2013 season.

Modern era

Viettel period

2010–2018: Promotion

Next to 2010 season, the club again switched its name back to Viettel FC, and also voluntarily left the professional football set-up. Instead, the club decided to focus on youth development, and start competing again in the amateur 4th tier of Vietnamese football. On October 26, 2014, the ''General Director of Military Telecommunications Group'' signed the decision ''No. 2294/QD-VTQ-TCNL'' to consolidate the functions and tasks and change the name of ''Viettel Football Training Center'' to ''Viettel Sports Center''. In 2016, the club finally returned to professional football after winning promotion to the V.League 2. In 2018, Viettel F.C. won the V.League 2 championship and went back to the national top tier

. The football club also wanted to switch back to the formerly name Thể Công when the tournament started from 2019, but was not agreed yet from the

, who owned brands name "Thể Công" and were used by their volleyball team – "Câu lạc bộ bóng chuyền Thể Công" (Thể Công Volleyball Club). Therefore, the official name of the football club is Câu lạc bộ Bóng đá Viettel (Viettel Football Club) and owned by

2019–present: Revival

In the 2020 season, Viettel had a race to the championship with

. *In the 2020 National Cup, the club won the runner-up title after losing 1–2 at Hang Day Stadium against

. *At LS 2020 V.League 1, the club won the championship after beating

Saigon FC Saigon Football Club () is a Vietnamese professional association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ...

1–0 with Bruno Cantanhede's only goal in the last round – round 7 of phase 2 of group A taking place on 8/08. 11/2020. They only took two seasons in

to be crowned, when they were promoted from the 2019 season. If including the achievements of ''Thể Công'', this is the 19th time they has won the championship. *In 2021, the club qualified for the

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition ...

Continental record

Season-by-season record ( V-League)

Honours

National competitions

;League *

A1 National League A1, A-1, A01 or A.1. may refer to: Education * A1, the Basic Language Certificate of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages * Language A1, the former name for "Language A: literature", one of the IB Group 1 subjects * A1, a ...

: Winners (6; record): 1981–82, 1982–83,

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

: Runners-up : (4)

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

, 1989,

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

: Third place : (3) 1993–94,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, 2000–01 19 cup TC

* Hoa Binh League : Winners (13; record): 1955, 1956, 1958, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979 * V.League 2: : Winners : (2) 2007,

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

: Runners-up : (1)

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

(as

Viettel F.C. Viettel Football Club (), simply known as Viettel FC, is a Vietnamese professional Association football, football club based in Hanoi. The club belongs to the Viettel Sports Centre, a part of Viettel Group and competes in the V.League 1, the top ...

) * Second League: (as

) : Winners :

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

: Runners-up :

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

* Third League (as

) : Winners : 2008 ;Cup *

Vietnamese Cup Vietnamese National Football Cup ( vi, Giải Bóng đá Cúp Quốc Gia Việt Nam), now officially recognized as the BaF Meat National Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a Vietnamese football competition. It is one of the most important club compet ...

: : Runners-up : (4) 1992, 2004,

. *

Vietnamese Super Cup Vietnamese National Football Super Cup ( vi, Siêu cúp bóng đá Việt Nam), also called the Thaco National Football Super Cup due to sponsorship reasons, is Vietnamese football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous V.L ...

: : Winners : (1) 1999. : Runners-up : (1) 2020

Other competitions

Festival Sport Vietnam A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival con ...

: Winners : 2002 * Army ASEAN (1) : Winners : 2004 : Runners-up : 1999 * U21 (2) : Winners : 1997, 1998 * U19 (3) : Winners : 1998, 2002, 2009 * SKDA : Third place : (1) 1989

Players

First-team squad

Out on loan

Reserves and academy

Out on loan

Results and fixtures

Kit suppliers and shirt sponsors

Famous players

Coaching staff

Coaches

* Quản Trọng Hùng (2001–?) * Branko Radović (?–7/11/2003) * Phan Văn Mỵ (7/11/2003-?) * Tomas Viczko (10/2006-?) * Gyorgy Galhidi (31/7/2007–1/9/2008) *

(16/9/2008–2009) * Lê Thụy Hải (1/2009–5/2009) *

Đinh Thế Nam Đinh Thế Nam (born 30 April 1965) is a Vietnamese football manager and former footballer who currently is the director of the Hanoi FC youth academy. Early life He is a native of Haiphong, Vietnam. Career He mainly operated as a midfielder ...

(2016) * Nguyễn Hải Biên (2017–1/2019) *

Lee Heung-sil Lee Heung-sil (born July 10, 1961) is a former South Korean footballer Club career He spent his entire playing career in POSCO Atoms. He was awarded the Best Young K-League Player of the Year in 1985. In the following year, he broke K-Leag ...

(1/2019-6/2019) * Nguyễn Hải Biên (6/2019–) * Trương Việt Hoàng (1/2020–) *

Hans-Jürgen Gede Hans-Jürgen Gede (born 14 November 1956) is a German Association football, football coach and former player. Playing career Born in Gelsenkirchen, Gede began playing football for FC Schalke 04 in 1975. In 1977, he joined SC Preußen Münster a ...

(6/2021) (2021 AFC Champions League only)Gede served as head coach of Viettel FC during the

2021 AFC Champions League The 2021 AFC Champions League was the 40th edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 19th under the current AFC Champions League title. Al-Hilal won their fourth title by def ...

, where it is required that the head coach of a club to have a "Pro" license. Trương Việt Hoàng, the club's regular head coach has no such credentials by the time of the competition. * Bae Ji-won (6/2022) (2022 AFC Cup only)

References

External links

Old forum about The Cong

The Cong 2009 squad
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cong Viettel FC Viettel Football Club Football clubs in Hanoi Association football clubs established in 1954 1954 establishments in Vietnam Military association football clubs in Vietnam