4 : 0
One big adventure, but it is worth visiting football stadiums other than Old Trafford, Camp Nou, or Allianz Arena for such adventures.
First, it turned out that we had arrived at the wrong stadium. The lack of floodlights after dark did not bode well, and it soon became clear that we had to return to the center of Hanoi. Traffic in the capital of Vietnam is such that it undoubtedly meant sacrificing the first half, but the hope of seeing at least a piece of the match still flickered on. Under one of the gates of the facility, a middle-aged man was showing off with a cork helmet on his head. He was clearly agitated, engaging in a series of simultaneous conversations of unknown content to us (in Vietnamese) and he generally gave the impression of a man whose approval was needed to enter the stadium. The impression remained just an impression, because after a good fifteen minutes, another middle-aged gentleman arrived without a cork helmet, yet with a bunch of keys instead, and he opened the large padlock on the gate. The delighted crowd (in the meantime, quite a sizable group of similar vultures had gathered around the gate) entered the stadium, only to hear the whistle ending the first half of the match a moment later. There was some time to look around the venue and soak in the atmosphere of the match between, after all, the domestic giants: FC Hanoi vs. FC Ho Chi Minh City.
It turned out that no goals had been scored so far, meaning the essence of the football spectacle managed to avoid being missed despite the known perturbations. The said essence was delivered after the break, and it happened four times. The match, contrary to my expectations, was at quite a decent level, and there was no room for boredom, unlike the match in Qatar just a few days earlier. Mainly, the underage youth cheered on the local team exceptionally energetically, and each goal scored was celebrated with a run carrying the club flag by a pimple-faced FC Hanoi fan in glasses.
Finally, the final whistle sounded, and one could head to the center of the capital to taste the specialties of the otherwise delicious local cuisine and have a beer, which in Socialistic Republic of Vietnam, definitely holds the palm of priority among alcoholic drinks.