Major Sports Events in Vietnam: How Fans Prepare for Big Football Tournaments

December 1995, Southeast Asian Games. Vietnam wins against Malaysia, and here comes another unplanned action of Vietnamese fans – they ride their motorcycles, honk the horns, wave the flags, and celebrate a victory in the group stage as they would have celebrated in a final one. There wasn’t any special name to that activity yet. When the tournament ended after two weeks, and Vietnam became runners-up, the celebration became known as đi bão, and today, after three decades, it’s still a core of how the whole country is celebrating football victories.

It’s important to say that preparation starts days before the main event. Sometimes there is nothing more than Melbet registration, done during the lunch break, to prepare everything related to the game day. The cafe owners string the light strings, bring out all the additional plastic chairs, and decide on the perfect spot for the bed sheet, which will serve as a projection screen. This is the peak of sales season for the flag vendors.

Getting ready for a match Vietnam isn’t even playing in

This is where everyone gets surprised. The country has never taken part in the Men’s World Cup before, but in the 2026 World Cup hosted in the US, Canada, and Mexico, there were people who stayed in the coffee shops in Ho Chi Minh City until 2 a.m. The phone links to a bedsheet on the wall. Plastic chairs end up in the alley. Whenever a goal is scored, a grandma on the top floor bangs a pot from her balcony, no matter which teams are playing.

It is not a fluke of schedule. Fans in the country created an entire culture of watching football matches as a spectacular thing first and a symbol of national pride second, hence why any Brazil-Argentina game at 3 am will draw more people than many European sports pubs ever could. One of those people will use the Melbet app at halftime. It’s not that the competition matters much to Vietnam; it’s just that having a stake makes it more exciting.

Year	Event	What happened
1995	SEA Games (Vietnam beats Malaysia)	First recorded đi bão
1998	AFF Championship semifinal (3-0 vs Thailand)	First nationwide street storming
2018	AFF Suzuki Cup title	Massive, sustained celebrations for days
2019	AFC Asian Cup quarterfinal	New generation joins under Park Hang-seo
Jan 2025	AFF Cup 2024 final (Vietnam 2-1 Thailand)	Hundreds of thousands at Hoan Kiem Lake alone
Dec 2025	SEA Games gold medal	Simultaneous celebrations in Hanoi, Can Tho, Hai Phong

Notice the gap between 2009 and 2018 – nearly ten years without a trophy. The joy of đi bão faded until a young U23 team reached the Asian Championship finals. They lost in a snowstorm in China during the final moments. Nevertheless, the nation rejoiced anyway, and this is how the trend began.

Preparing to celebrate safely, which is newer than it sounds

There is an intriguing addendum to the January 2025 AFF Cup victory. It occurred shortly after the implementation of Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP, which increased traffic fines exponentially, including up to 20 million dong for running a red light. The streets were packed as usual that night, but things had changed. According to reports of the celebration, it included motorcycle riders stopping at red lights, helmeted, with at least some semblance of order amid the chaos.

Consider, for comparison, 2008, where the celebrations of the AFF Championship claimed at least four lives, and there were 183 emergency cases recorded only in Ho Chi Minh City. Or even 2019, where 50 traffic accidents throughout the country led to 31 deaths. In July 2025 celebrations, police caught ten people violating regulations, all underage riders without driving licenses, but no traffic casualties. This is not a minor change in a tradition that is based solely on motorbikes and euphoria.

These campaigns came heavily before the SEA Games’ final game in December 2025. Influencers made sure to remind people about their helmets and sobriety while riding motorcycles before the game. Fans continued to gather at designated viewing places like the stadium of Lach Tray in Hai Phong, where fireworks were ignited and drums were beaten the moment that the third goal was scored by the Vietnamese team, but now there was a focus on safety before the game.

What actually gets someone through the door

None of this preparation is related to football strategies. Very few people congregating in a coffee shop at 2 am for a World Cup match where there is no Vietnamese team playing will be able to describe an offside trap, and it does not matter much, since it was never the intention behind it. The whole exercise of the ritual, of buying the flag, of reserving the stool, of checking the scores in between drinks, of staying up even though work is after six hours, is all about what follows next.