Da Nang, Van Cuong, and the Return of Drums at Hoa Xuan Stadium

On a late July afternoon, Hoa Xuan Stadium lay still under the Da Nang sun. I stood in Stand B, where the plastic seats had faded from rain and sun, and heard clearly the sound of goalkeeper Van Cuong clapping his gloves together in front of goal. No fans. No loudspeakers. No drums. Only his footsteps on the grass, steady and heavy, like someone tapping a rhythm on a closed door. During the pandemic the stadium was empty, yet I had never heard the heartbeat of the fans so clearly. Four seasons later, in that same place, the stands overflowed with red flags and rolling drums. But to understand why Hoa Xuan filled up again, I have to start from when it was emptiest. In 2026, the V.League was suspended mid-season by the pandemic. SHB Da Nang, the club I had followed for twenty-five years, hung between two seasons: no matches, no full training camps, no certainty the league would continue. The coaching staff scrambled to keep players fit through small-group sessions, checking temperatures every morning. The training pitch gathered dust. The substitutes' bench sat empty. Players trained in silence, then returned to their rooms in silence. In that period, spirit, not tactics, became the thing that decided a team's survival. I sat in a coffee shop by the Han River and heard Van Cuong say over the phone: "Brother, I am not afraid of losing, I am afraid of silence." That line haunted me for months. A twenty-eight-year-old goalkeeper, once a starter in the V.League, once called up to training camps, suddenly stood in front of goal with no one behind him. People say the goalkeeper is the loneliest man on the pitch. But true loneliness is when both the stadium and the stands have no one left. That was when I came up with the idea of recording fans' words of encouragement. I went from one supporters' group to another, from coffee shops on Nguyen Van Linh Street to meetings of the SHB Da Nang fan club, asking them to speak one line into a recorder, just one. I stitched hundreds of those voices, an old man's, a child's, a ticket seller's, a drink vendor's at the stadium gate, into a twenty-minute tape. Each private training session, the coaching staff played it through a small speaker by the touchline. Just like that, the sound of the empty stands returned to where it belonged: the ears of those still training. Van Cuong later recalled that he would stand in front of the goal at the end of practice, only listening, not looking, picturing each face. One week he heard a small child say, "Uncle Cuong, I am waiting for you." He said that was the motivation that kept him from quitting. During that period he was quietly struggling with mild depression. Vietnamese football in recent years has begun to talk more about players' mental health, but Van Cuong's story largely stayed inside the dressing room. When the league returned, SHB Da Nang had to play with their backs to the wall. Low points, a thin squad, pressure from public opinion falling on the coaching staff. That was also the season I witnessed what I had always believed: possession rate is the most deceptive statistic in football. Da Nang had matches with over sixty percent possession, yet pointless sideways passes in midfield created no chances. What the team lacked was a turn, a well-timed through ball, a finish into the net after three touches, not another five percent of possession. I still remember a match where Da Nang faced a direct rival in the relegation fight. In the first half, the home side had plenty of the ball and passed smoothly. In the second, the opponent pushed high and scored from a counterattack after just three passes. From the stands, I saw clearly what the stats did not say: Da Nang's players tired at the sixtieth minute, lost the spacing between lines, and exposed a wide area in front of the box. That lesson, no expected-goals metric on earth could replace the eye of someone sitting in the stands. Some matches last ninety minutes, but the story lingers for decades. At the end of that season, the team survived. Not brilliantly, not spectacularly. But they survived. And the way they survived was what mattered: three key players stayed after several clubs came calling. Not because of money, but because of a conversation. I remember an afternoon when the club leadership, the coaching staff, the fan club, and a few former stars sat around one coffee table by the Han River. No head chair, no official giving a speech. Only people speaking, people listening, and one question: who does this club belong to? When no one was left arguing over the answer, three players decided to stay. I understood then that some contracts are not signed with a pen, but with trust. When Hoa Xuan erupted in tears, I understood that a brand is not a logo but trust. The following season, when fans were allowed back, I stood in Stand B, in the exact spot I had stood during the pandemic. Below, the grass was greener. Above, the stands were fuller. But one thing had not changed: the drums. Every drumbeat in the stands is a heartbeat of the city where the ball rolls. It rings out before the referee blows the whistle and echoes after the match ends. People do not come to the stadium only to see wins and losses. They come to hear each other. What journalism often skips in the Da Nang story is the hard part to hear. Not every fan was united. During the crisis, some fan groups turned on each other, some called the coaching staff "sellers of the human spirit," and there were fiery arguments on social media where my name was dragged in. Someone messaged me: "Are you writing for the team or for the fans?" That question, I still keep. I did not take the piece down. I left it as it was, because I believe fans have the right to be angry, and their anger is also a piece of data. The trap of the community story is that people easily idealize it. Real communities have divisions, jealousy, people who only come to the stadium when the team wins. Ignore those dark corners, and the story becomes propaganda. I do not write propaganda. What I learned after twenty-five years following Da Nang football: when a team falls, you see clearly who truly stays. That is the harshest test, and also the most beautiful one. Now, with Hoa Xuan full again, I ask myself: what will keep this city beside its club when the next season does not go smoothly? Trust built from an empty stadium will last longer than trust built from a full one. And if there is one thing I want to send to those writing about Vietnamese football: go to the stadium when no one is there. That is when you hear the most.