Striker Nguyễn Tiến Linh was visibly disappointed following Công an TP.HCM’s heavy loss to Thể Công Viettel.
Công an TP.HCM experienced their first defeat in the 2025/26 V-League season when they were heavily defeated at the home ground of Thể Công Viettel in the second round.
After the match, striker Nguyễn Tiến Linh confirmed that the entire Công an TP.HCM team performed poorly and expressed deep disappointment.
Specifically, the 27-year-old player stated: "This loss is hard to accept given the circumstances. The whole team had a really poor performance today both in terms of results and spirit. After today, the team will learn from the experience and aim for three points in the next home game."
During the 90 minutes at Hàng Đẫy Stadium, Tiến Linh and the expensive attacking stars of Công an TP.HCM failed to create many scoring chances, which partly explains why the police team ended up empty-handed. Regarding this issue, Tiến Linh acknowledged that the offense still lacks cohesion due to limited time to get used to each other before the season started.
The 2024 Golden Ball winner revealed: "Today, the connection between Linh and his teammates was not good because the foreign players and Linh haven’t had much time to train or communicate together.
But this is just the beginning. Linh believes that soon, he and the foreign players along with the other forwards will sit down to discuss and train more together, talk more to understand each other better and perform well in upcoming matches."
Playing away against Thể Công Viettel, Tiến Linh and his teammates showed some lack of synchronization in their plays. Meanwhile, the defense made a mistake when Matheus handled the ball, leading to Pedro Henrique’s opening goal from the penalty spot. This situation continued until the final minutes of the second half when the home team scored two more goals by Damian Vũ and Lucao, concluding the match with a 3-0 victory for Thể Công Viettel.
The three points earned allowed coach Velizar Popov’s squad to temporarily take the top spot with four points, although they have played one more match than their rivals. Meanwhile, Công an TP.HCM dropped to sixth place.