Thể Công–Viettel Football Club (, ), commonly known as Thể Công, is a Vietnamese professional football club based in Hanoi. The club is formally operated by Viettel Sports Center – an affiliation of Viettel Group – and competes in the V.League 1, the top tier of the Vietnamese football league system.
Thể Công–Viettel is the modern incarnation of Thể Công, a historically prominent club in Vietnamese football. The club won 09 North Vietnam national titles before 1976 and 4 National A-class titles and 6 V.League 1 titles since Vietnam's reunification of national football in 1976. Those 19 titles make Thể Công be the greatest football club in Vietnam's history. It has also produced a number of players who went on to represent the Vietnamese national team.
Thể Công–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, known as the "Capital derby" or the "Vietnamese Clasico". From the 2010s, Thể Công–Viettel developed a new rivalry with 2006 established team Hà Nội FC.
History Thể Công period 1954–1968: Formation and rising On 23 September 1954, according to the appointment of the Director of the General Department of Politics at that time, General Nguyễn Chí 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 (Physical Education and Sports Team Work) and was managed by Ministry of Defence.
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, Lý Đức 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 Thể Công football team include: Lê Nhâm; Nguyễn Văn Hiếu; Phạm Ngọc Quế; Nguyễn Thiêm; Ngô Xuân Quýnh; Phạm Mạnh Soạn; Trương Vĩnh Thắng; Nguyễn Bá Khánh; Nguyễn Văn Bưởi (captain); Nguyễn Thông (player-coach); Vũ Tâm (as Phạm Vinh). Beside, Nguyễn Văn Thành (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 25 October, in the first football match held since the liberation of Hanoi at Hàng Đẫy Stadium, Thể Công had the first match in its history against Trần Hưng Đạo 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 minute by the striker captain Nguyễn Văn Bưởi.
In 1955, Vietnam's first football tournament was held in Haiphong with the name Hoà Bình League. Thể Công participated with both their main and reserves team and both teams won championships of two A and B classes.
In 1956, for the first time, the North Vietnam national football team was convened for international duty. At the age of 38, Tí Bồ was still called to the national team along with nine other Thể Công 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 North Vietnam Class A League 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. 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 Thể Công by their good defense system.
In 1965, the Military Sports Unit was dissolved due to the impact of American bombings in North Vietnam, leaving Thể Công facing the risk of dissolution. Thanks to the assistance of General Bằng Giang, Thể Công was allowed to continue its operations under the auspices of the Army Officers' School for a period of five years, thus competed until 1970 under the name Trường Sĩ Quan Lục Quân.
1970–2000: Golden decade and dominance in the league In the 1960s and 1970s, Thể Công dominated in the North Vietnam Football Championship with 12 titles, including eight consecutive titles from 1971 to 1978. During that time, the typical generation of Thể Công players were Nguyễn Thế Anh (Ba Đẻn), Nguyễn Cao Cường, Quản Trọng Hùng, Vương Tiến Dũng, Nguyễn Trọng Giáp, Vũ Mạnh Hải,... with the majority being young players who went to long-term training in North Korea in 1967 and when they returned home, they were the most outstanding and typical players in the country.
After the country was unified, the Vietnamese National Championship was launched. Thể Công remained one of the strongest football clubs in Vietnam, winning 5 national titles during the 1980s and 1990s. Thể Công players have often been the core of the national team and contributed many players in the golden age of Vietnamese football, including goalkeeper Trần Tiến Anh, Đỗ Mạnh Dũng, Nguyễn Mạnh Cường, Nguyễn Hồng Sơn, Trương Việt Hoàng, Nguyễn Đức Thắng, Phạm Như Thuần, Triệu Quang Hà, Đặng Phương Nam, and Vũ Công Tuyền. Thể Công was one of the longest standing teams in the V.League until the team was relegated in 2004.
At the time, Công An Hà Nội were still the main rivals of the club which put up the strongest fight against its national dominance.
2004–2008: Relegation and promoted back In 2004, exactly 50 years after its foundation, Thể Công finished 11th out of 12 in the 2004 V-League and was relegated to the lower division. The team performed poorly partly due to the policy of not recruiting foreign players, in contrast to all other teams in the league at that time. In the following season, the club changed its name to Thể Công Viettel, (Viettel 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 19 January 2007, the club gained their promototion back to V-League after winning over Tây Ninh 5–3 in the promotion play-offs. Immediately thereafter, the official team name was reversed back to Thể Công.
2009–2010: Transfer from General Political Department to Viettel Group On 22 September 2009 (before the 55th anniversary of the establishment of Thể Công) the Ministry of Defence changed Thể Công's name to Viettel. In November 2009, the Ministry of Defence decided to expropriate the "Thể Công" brand and transfer all management of football club from the General Political Department of the Vietnam People's Army to Viettel Group. On 7 November 2009, under an agreement with the leadership of Thanh Hóa province, Viettel Group transferred the participation slot of Viettel FC to the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thanh Hóa Province. After acquiring Viettel’s slot, the Thanh Hóa FC was renamed to "Viettel–Thanh Hóa FC". However, two months after, the club changed its name to "Lam Sơn Thanh Hóa FC" as Viettel sold its V.League playing slot to Thanh Hóa for 80 billion VND, retaining only its reserve team, which competed in the 2010 Vietnamese National Football First League. At the end of the 2010 season, Viettel also sold their First League slot to the T&T Youth Football Training Centre, with the team renamed "Hà Nội FC" the predecessor of what later became Sài Gòn FC.
On 23 September 2011, during the 57th anniversary of the establishment of the club, hundreds of officials, former players, and fans of all generations who were once members of Thể Công 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 was not interested in this reception. Facing the risk of being dissolved, the acting director of the Viettel Training Center Nguyễn Thanh Hải had asked the leaders of Viettel Telecom Corporation to allow the maintenance of the football academy and pledged to bring results in a year. In the 2010 football season, the academy's youth teams reached the final round of the youth tournaments. In the following year, the team's youth categories won 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze Medal in youth tournaments, officially gaining the right to exist. In 2012, Viettel re-entered the Vietnamese football system from the Third Division. The team placed first in their group and promoted to the Second Division.
Viettel period and revival 2010–2018: Promotion Following the promotion to the Second Division for the 2013 season, the club's strategy focused on youth development, aiming for long term success. The club played in the Second Division for 3 seasons, before topping their group in the 2015 season and gained the promotion to V.League 2 after defeating Cà Mau in the promotion play-offs. The club finally returned to professional football in the 2016 season four years after the rebuilding.
In 2018, Viettel won the V.League 2 and made their comeback to the national top tier V.League 1. 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 Ministry of Defence, who owned brands name "Thể Công". Therefore, the official name of the team remained Viettel Football Club, owned by Viettel Group.
2019–present: revival In the 2020 season, in their second season at the V.League 1 after their promotion, Viettel had a title race in the league with same city rival Hanoi FC. Despite being placed behind Hanoi FC during the first part of the season, Viettel came back in the second half of the season and climbed to the first place after the 15th matchday. They ended up securing their first place and won the championship after beating Saigon FC 1–0 with Bruno Cantanhede's only goal in the last matchday that took place in November 2020. However, in the 2020 Vietnamese Cup, the club finished as runner-up after losing 1–2 against Hanoi FC in the final. It took them only two seasons in V.League 1 to be crowned as champions after they were promoted from the 2019 season. If including the achievements of the former Thể Công, this was the 9th time that they have won the national league after the reunification of Vietnam. It is also the 19th national title of the club. The title also qualified the club for the AFC Champions League.
Name history 1954–1965: Thể Công 1965–1970: Trường Sĩ Quan Lục Quân 1970–1975: Thể Công 1976–1998: Quân Đội 1999–2005: Thể Công 2005–2007: Thể Công–Viettel 2007–2009: Thể Công 2010–2023: Viettel 2023–present: Thể Công–Viettel
Kit suppliers and shirt sponsors Period Kit manufacturer Shirt sponsor 2017 MitreBankPlus2019 VNA SportsViettel 4G Vietel Pay2020–2022 FBTViettel2022–present Li-NingViettel MoneyBamboo AirwaysMB BankViettel TV360
Stadium
Thể Công–Viettel had several home stadiums throughout their history. From their creation in 1956 until 1998, Thể Công had the 6,000-capacity Cột Cờ Stadium as its home ground. The stadium was built in the 1940s by the French colonial authorities and was known as the Mangin Stadium. It located within the Imperial Citadel of Thăng Long. The stadium changed its name to Cột Cờ Stadium following the Việt Minh's takeover of Hanoi in 1954 and was placed under the control of the Ministry of National Defence. With the downgrade of Cột Cờ in the 1990s, Thể Công moved to the larger Hàng Đẫy Stadium, and used Cột Cờ as their training ground. In 2004, the Ministry of National Defence decided to discontinue the use of Cột Cờ Stadium for sporting activities, and transferred its management to other military units.