Coach Harry Kewell: 'What Has to Come Will Come' – The Crisis Spiral at Hanoi FC and Lessons from Incheon

On the night of September 20 at Hang Day Stadium, when Da Nang's final penalty beat the Hanoi FC goalkeeper, a corner of the stand fell into breathless silence. 1-1 after 90 minutes, a 3-4 defeat on penalties – Hanoi FC were eliminated from the National Cup at the round of 16 stage. This was their third consecutive defeat since the start of the 2026-27 season, a start no one in the capital could have imagined. Head coach Harry Kewell, the former Liverpool and Leeds United star, stood motionless on the touchline. His post-match words reflected a worrying psychological state: "When we didn't take our chances, we were pulled into a penalty shootout." Then he added: "Whatever has to come will come." The phrase carries the tone of someone who has accepted fate, not that of a leader trying to lift his team's spirits. The Incheon lesson taught me: rumors are the wind, verification is the door. And looking at this sequence of results, I recall the Kim Min-jae deal collapsing in 2026 – when a sudden shock left everyone disoriented, but the key wasn't the injury, it was how you handled it. Look at the bigger picture. The penalty-shootout defeat is a low-information event. Modern football has proven that shootouts are a near-random coin toss – they don't reflect a team's true strength. But the two heavy defeats against Cong An TP.HCM and Song Lam Nghe An before that are the truly alarming signals. A team that loses heavily usually exposes structural problems: a high defensive line punished in transition, or a pressing system that has been decoded. I witnessed the Kim Min-jae deal collapse at the last moment, and I understand the price of haste. The question here is not whether Hanoi FC should sack Kewell – it's whether they have the courage to assess the problem calmly, or whether they will choose the familiar solution: changing the coach mid-season, a habit that has become institutionalized at this club. Historical precedent is the strongest predictor of board behavior. Many foreign head coaches were replaced early in previous seasons – the article itself mentions this as an established fact. When a club has a habit of dismissing foreign coaches early, the probability of that behavior recurring rises significantly, regardless of the coaching quality of the current incumbent. Kewell admitted: "The team's spirit has been dealt a heavy blow." This is a worrying statement. When a coach has to call for unity, it's usually because unity has already cracked. More importantly, his mission involves a larger problem: his tactics – influenced by Ange Postecoglou's school at Yokohama F. Marinos – tend toward ball possession and a high line. This style is vulnerable when chance conversion is poor, and that's exactly what's happening. On the night of the 2026 World Cup, I learned that contracts can die, but lessons live forever. And in this context, the biggest lesson is about timing. FIFA Days – the international match window – is approaching. This period was described as "necessary and valuable time to restore morale and make necessary adjustments." But in reality, the international break is the standard window for clubs to dismiss coaches – it minimizes disruption costs and gives a successor a clean mini-pre-season. The FIFA break is the decisive junction of this entire story. It is both a recovery window and a decision point. When the board faces three consecutive defeats, with a history of early foreign-coach dismissals, and a coach whose quotes suggest resignation, the likelihood of a change being made during this break is high. But I want to offer a contrarian view. The National Cup elimination at the round of 16 is a low-predictive event for the rest of the season. A 1-1 draw and a penalty-shootout loss cannot indicate that the team is collapsing completely. The real problem lies in the two heavy defeats – but even those need context: Cong An TP.HCM is a rising power with strong financial resources, and Song Lam Nghe An is always a difficult team with Vietnam's leading youth academy tradition. The transfer market is like a chess game: spectators see the moves, those inside see the moves not yet played. And in this game, I see a move not yet made: the impact of emerging clubs – especially those linked to public security – squeezing the position of traditional clubs like Hanoi FC. This is not a personal problem of Coach Kewell, but a structural trend spanning multiple seasons. The biggest question I would leave here is whether Hanoi FC has the patience to weather this storm or not. Not patience with Kewell – but patience with the squad-building process, patience to let him assemble tactical pieces, patience for mistakes during a transition period. I don't write to shock; I write so the truth settles and remains. And the truth is: Hanoi FC is facing a small crisis of results but a large crisis of psychology. If the board acts too hastily, they will pay the price of compensation for the old coach, recruitment costs for a new one, and potentially supplemental transfer costs – all far larger than the direct financial damage from the cup exit. As Vietnamese football integrates further, as we witness wealthy clubs rising and traditional clubs being challenged, the Incheon lesson – and the Kim Min-jae lesson – is about verification and patience. A contract can collapse in an instant, but a person – a coach, a player – can rise again if given the chance. The final question I leave for readers: Will Hanoi FC, Vietnam's most successful club, learn this lesson, or will it continue the cycle of changing coaches, changing policies, and forever rebuilding from scratch?