Melbourne Victory start the Club’s first-ever AFC Champions League Two campaign this week.
The Boys in Blue have travelled to Hanoi, Vietnam, for their Group E opener against Thể Công–Viettel on Wednesday, September 16, kick-off 10:15pm AEST.
Before the match gets underway at Hàng Đẫy Stadium, learn more about the opposition Giovanni Savarese’s team will encounter.
The past
The story of Thể Công–Viettel, originally known as Thể Công, began in 1954. A regional powerhouse, they were the ultimate force, winning a record nine North Vietnam Football Championships, including five successive titles in the 1970s, before claiming four A-Class National League crowns in a row.
This theme of success, albeit not to the scale of the golden decade, continued on a country-wide scale when the Vietnamese National Championship, now the V.League 1, was launched in 1980, and the club nicknamed Red Tornado won a further five league titles before the new Millennium was ushered in.
However, relegation in 2004, ending their lengthy top-flight stint, signalled the start of a more turbulent period, as they yo-yoed between the first and second tiers, even dropping into the third before becoming a permanent fixture at the top table again since 2019.
In just their second season back at this level, they landed top spot in the V.League 1, qualifying for the AFC Champions League for the very first time, and 12 months later entered the AFC Cup, now the AFC Champions League Two, after finishing as runners-up.
They repeated this feat in 2025/26, confirming their return to the continental stage, which starts with the Match Day 1 Group E clash against Melbourne Victory.
The present
Currently managed by Bulgarian head coach Velizar Popov, who took charge in April 2025 and led them to their best league effort in six years last season, Thể Công–Viettel is in the infancy of its 2026/27 V.League 1 campaign.
After two games, they rank seventh, showing a win and a loss on their record, unable to follow up their 0-2 win at Dong Nai City with a positive result in the local derby with Công An Hà Nội, losing by a single goal despite playing against 10 men for a chunk of the second half.
Of note, their Vietnamese-dominated roster houses Melburnian goalkeeper Lawrence Caruso, whose CV features time at Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers, and a handful of Brazilians, of whom Wesley Natã, Ribamar and Hernandes Rodrigues are their attacking protagonists.
Wednesday night’s match will be played at the 92-year-old Hàng Đẫy Stadium, as upgrades are carried out to renovate the larger-capacity Mỹ Đình National Stadium.
The future
With 14 teams competing in the V.League 1, Thể Công–Viettel has 24 league matches remaining to be played by the penultimate weekend of next May.
This includes home and away matches against the Vietnamese capital’s other premier outfit, Hanoi FC, who are managed by UEFA Champions League-winning Socceroo and former Melbourne Victory midfielder Harry Kewell.
Velizar Popov’s men also have Vietnamese Cup commitments and, of course, their AFC Champions League Two duels against Melbourne Victory, FC Seoul and Persib Bandung. The return fixture in Victoria, Match Day 5 in Group E, is set for Kardinia Park, Geelong.
