Vietnam 4-2 Pakistan in Jakarta: Four Goals and Two Cracks That Cannot Be Hidden

Minute 89 at Gelora Bung Karno, a group of Vietnamese supporters still refused to sit down. They stood for the entire second half, from the moment the score was 1-2 until the electronic board showed 4-2. I sat behind them, my notebook already filled across three pages, but only at that instant did I understand what I was witnessing. A team capable of scoring four goals within forty minutes, and conceding twice in the very match in which they dominated possession.

October 2, 2026. A Friday evening in Jakarta. Vietnam entered the final group-stage fixture against Pakistan. The players of head coach Kim Sang-sik began with an overwhelming posture. The ball rolled almost exclusively toward one side. But football, as always, does not reward the side that holds the ball more.

In the early teens of the first half, a lapse in the channel. Vietnam's backline left space behind, and Pakistan punished it. 0-1. The stands fell silent for a few seconds, then the chants of the Pakistani supporters rang out clearly across a nearly empty stadium. Vietnam still held the ball, still built play, but the same pattern kept repeating: control without finishing, dominance without scoring.

Then Pakistan scored a second. 0-2. By now even the most optimistic in the stands began to glance at one another. The first half closed with Vietnam trailing, a scenario no one in the press room had dared to imagine when the match kicked off.

To understand this match, it must be placed in a wider picture. Vietnam entered the tournament as one of the leading contenders for the regional title. But the group-stage journey was far from smooth. Earlier matches had revealed a team that held the ball well yet lacked sharpness in front of goal, and at times exposed fatal gaps at the back. The Pakistan match was a miniature portrait of all of that, except this time Vietnam scored enough to win.

I have watched many matches of the national team under Kim Sang-sik, and what struck me was not that the team fell behind, but how they responded in the second half. Some teams, when trailing, panic, hit long balls, lose structure. Vietnam was different. They raised the tempo but kept their shape.

In the 50th minute, Nguyen Hoang Duc arrived at exactly the right moment inside the box, met a placed pass, and pulled a goal back. It was the kind of goal scored by a midfielder who reads position, a man arriving from the second line rather than a fixed target man. Vietnam's scoring model in this match lay with midfielders and wide forwards penetrating the box, not with a target man holding up play.

Just seven minutes later, in the 57th, Hai Long equalised. From 0-2 to 2-2 within the first seven minutes of the second half. This signals an effective half-time adjustment, and also a fitness base superior to the opponent. Pakistan, after forty-five minutes at high intensity, began to fade.

Then came the goal I will remember for a long time. Dinh Bac, the young striker, received the ball in midfield, dribbled past two, three Pakistani players and finished. A purely individual goal. It did not come from a rehearsed combination, nor from a cross, but from the quality of an individual able to create a chance from nothing.

That is the most encouraging signal of the match. A team can build a collective style, but to win big matches it needs individuals who can produce a moment out of thin air. Dinh Bac showed he has that quality.

In the 90th+3, Williams Minh Hoang sealed the score at 4-2. A goal from the bench, a sign he was used as an attacking reinforcement once the opponent had tired. The goal was cosmetic to the scoreline, but it also spoke to the squad depth Kim Sang-sik now has.

If one looks only at the 4-2 scoreline, supporters will feel satisfied. A comeback win, four goals, a qualification ticket as group runners-up. But I stood there, and I saw what the electronic board did not say.

Vietnam conceded twice. Once through a backline lapse in the first half. Once more near the end, when the match was almost settled. A team that dominates possession so heavily yet concedes twice in a single match is a worrying sign, not a detail to be waved away. Had the opponent been Thailand or Indonesia rather than Pakistan, those two lapses could have decided the match in a different direction.

This is nothing new. Throughout the tournament, Vietnam's backline repeatedly left space behind the full-backs when they pushed high. The problem lies in the structure: when both full-backs advance to support the attack, the space behind them is only covered if the defensive midfielder drops back in time. Against Pakistan, that cover sometimes arrived, sometimes did not.

On social media, after the match, most comments revolved around the four goals and the comeback. Very few mentioned the two concessions. That is the familiar blind spot of supporters: we tend to remember the result and forget the process that produced it. A 4-2 win sounds far more convincing than its reality.

But fairness requires this too: the goals from Hoang Duc and Hai Long show that Kim Sang-sik adjusted correctly at half-time. A team scoring twice within seven minutes of the restart is no coincidence. It is the product of a side that understood the opponent's weakness and knew how to exploit it.

There was a detail I noted in my book without putting it into the live report. After Hai Long equalised, the Vietnamese players did not celebrate for long. They ran back into their own half, reset their shape, and waited for the ball. A team that understands 2-2 is not the final result. That is a sign of maturity.

An empty stadium still keeps the beat for those who know how to listen. In Jakarta, though the stands were not full, the rhythm of the match was kept by those who understood that every minute has value.

This win also carries psychological weight. Entering a major tournament, what any team fears most is losing morale after a defeat. Coming back from 0-2 to win 4-2 shows this team can still withstand pressure. But psychology is only one part. Football is decided by specific details on the pitch, and those details do not always appear in the scoreline.

On October 5, 2026, a Monday, Vietnam face Malaysia in the third-place playoff. This is the match people call the match of honour, where a team that failed to secure a place in the final must still walk onto the pitch to prove something.

Malaysia are not a comfortable opponent. They too reached this stage as group runners-up, and in terms of level they are a peer of Vietnam. This is not a match Vietnam can win merely by holding the ball. This is a match where the backline will be genuinely tested.

Missing the final is a below-expectation outcome. For a football nation accustomed to contending for the regional title, stopping at the group stage as runners-up is a step backward. Pressure will fall on head coach Kim Sang-sik, who has already faced many questions about his tournament approach.

But I want to look at another dimension. Against Pakistan, Vietnam showed they can score four goals. They have individuals who can create moments. They have a coach who adjusts at half-time. Those are foundations. What remains is consistency.

Four goals cannot erase two lapses in the channel, and that is what the electronic board never says. A team that wants to go far cannot rely on second-half comebacks as a fixed formula. The comeback is a quality, but it only has value when paired with the ability to control a match from the start.

What I await in the Malaysia match is not the number of goals, but how Vietnam keep a clean sheet in the first half. A team that learns from its own mistakes will enter that match with different focus. If the backline still leaves the channel open as it did against Pakistan, then four goals will mean nothing. But if they fix it, we will have a different Vietnam, a team that controls a match from start to finish instead of waiting for the second half to come back.