The Emptiness of Football Data: Lessons from a N/A Analysis

I have just received a deep football analysis. From the outside, it looks like a professional document: full of major sections such as "Tactical & Technical Analysis", "Club Finance & Transfer Market Analysis", "Risk Profile Analysis"... But when I opened it and read, all rows displayed the same frightening symbol: N/A. No statistics, no player names, no dates. It was only a perfect skeleton with no content. I felt as if I were standing in a grand stadium without spectators, without a ball, without a match. This emptiness reminded me of the summer days of 2026, when the domestic football league was suspended and all of us had to find ways to record the life around football through screens. My group of young reporters and I voluntarily organized a livestream series called "Hanoi Rainy Afternoon Football" — capturing night vendors, the silence of closed football cafes, and interviewing veteran fans remotely. When I asked an xe ôm driver in Thủ Đức about the 2026 SEA Games final, he burst into tears because of the beautiful memories. But today, I don't need to interview anyone to know that the sadness of an empty document is similar to standing in front of an empty stadium on a day without a match. In my twenty-eight years as a journalist, I have never seen such an empty analysis. Even baseless transfer rumors have at least a hint of a name or a number. This document has nothing. It mentions no players, no matches, no tournaments. It merely repeats "N/A - insufficient information" as a confession of powerlessness. What created this emptiness? Perhaps the system did not receive data from the source. But that is not the main reason. The main reason, I believe, is that Vietnamese football still does not have the habit of storing and analyzing data seriously. We still rely on memory, on feelings, on anecdotal stories. A concrete example: in news reports of V-League matches, people often mention beautiful plays and goals, but rarely any detailed statistics about sprint counts, distance covered, or pressing indicators. Meanwhile, in Europe, even the smallest team has a data analysis department. They use it for scouting, injury rehabilitation, and tactical construction. When I was in charge of international football at the editorial office, I often had to rewatch footage and cross-reference metrics to verify information. That helped me avoid many mistakes. But in Vietnam, a young player can shine in a season, be hailed by the media, then suddenly disappear after moving to a bigger club. Why? Because football managers do not have data to truly evaluate their abilities. They only see brilliant moments on the pitch, not consistency throughout a match. Many fans will say that football is emotion, not mathematics. I agree that no machine can measure a supporter's love for their team. But without data, we cannot know how many successful crosses a winger has made, how many aerial duels a centre-back has won, or how long a midfielder can hold the ball under pressure. We just watch and think he plays well, but perhaps he was just lucky in a few matches. My experience following matches shows that most mistakes in transfer contracts stem from evaluating based on highlights, rather than long-term data. The empty-stadium summer that year taught me a great lesson: people need something to believe in. Fans need faith, players need recognition, and managers need accuracy in decisions. But we cannot achieve accuracy if we do not collect data. Today, I sit in front of the screen, looking at an empty document, and I think of the children training at Vietnamese football academies. Do they know that the adults — journalists, scouts, managers — are flying in a fog of missing information? Do they know that their footballing future might be decided by subjective judgments, without any scientific basis? Above all, I worry for young journalists. We, the older generation, have survived the profession with experience and instinct. But the world is changing too fast. If we do not teach them how to read data, how to verify information, how to place every judgment under the light of probability, then they themselves will become the creators of empty analyses, filled with hypotheses and rumors. I remember the line I often write in despair: "Every transfer deal is an excavation: eroding the media soil, finding fossils of ambition." But without data, all we find is empty ground. Fans do not need us to point the way to the stadium. They need a map to dig through memories to understand why they still stand there after all the ups and downs. The same applies to data: we should not merely write reports; we need to build channels for collecting numbers and analyzing them. For me, the word "Root" in my project's name is not just the root of a nation; it is the foundation of honesty. We must return to verified journalistic methods, upgraded with data. Imagine a day when all Vietnamese football analyses have sufficient metrics. We will be able to know exactly which player fits which tactic, which team might win the title based on probability, and which academy is producing the best players. Then the AFF Cup or the World Cup would be a well-prepared battle, not just a matter of luck. This sounds distant, but everything starts with recording and analyzing. The professional league has developed financially, but sustainable growth can only come from a strong data system. Today, receiving an empty document, I know we are still at the starting line of a long race. Each of us can choose to fill that emptiness with knowledge and experience. Thus, empty stadiums will gradually be filled, not only with grass and concrete, but with knowledge and trust. I turn back to the screen, close that analysis, and begin writing an article about an upcoming match. I will collect every number from various sources, cross-check and verify. Because I believe that a single number may be wrong, but a whole system of honest data will never betray us. And when a day comes when Vietnamese children run on the pitch, they will not only run after the ball but also after dreams that are measured and respected. When I stand in the empty stadium, I hear the echo of matches that never happened — matches we could have understood better if you and I, the people in football, knew how to listen to numbers rather than just applause. Let the lesson from a N/A analysis today become the foundation for a transparent football tomorrow.