Brenner scores a hat-trick as Bac Ninh Club start the National Cup with a dramatic 3-2 win over Long An

In the 88th minute at Long An's ground, the ball bounced out after one final attempt from the home side, and the full-time whistle sounded like a relief. Bac Ninh players collapsed to the pitch, celebrating as if they had won a title. Less than twenty minutes earlier, they had been leading 3-0 and the game seemed settled. Then everything nearly collapsed. Brenner Marlos, the Brazilian striker, scored the season's first hat-trick, but Bac Ninh Club's victory was preserved only by a nerve-wracking 3-2 scoreline in the 2026-2027 National Cup qualifying round. For the V-League newcomers, this is a favorable start, but also a warning that cannot be ignored. The match took place on the night of September 19 with two clubs carrying entirely contrasting stories. Bac Ninh Club arrived as a rising side, having secured promotion through a tense playoff against PVF-CAND after finishing second in the First Division last season. They had just shocked the V-League in Round 2 by beating championship contender Cong An TP.HCM 1-0. Confidence was high, and there was added motivation: Bac Ninh city officially became a centrally-governed city on September 20, a historic milestone for the locality. Optimism surrounded both the team and its supporters, raising expectations before the away trip to a club currently playing in the First Division. On the other side of the pitch, Long An Club did not share that excitement. The hosts had just suffered a 0-1 defeat to Cong An Nhan Dan in the opening round of the First Division, and the whole team was determined to claim their first win of the season against a higher-tier opponent. However, football does not respect determination unless it is backed by professional quality and an appropriate plan. From the start, Bac Ninh's intentions were clear. The visitors did not aim for overwhelming possession but focused on exploiting dead-ball situations and aerial balls, targeting the weaknesses of the home defense in the air. The opening goal came from a familiar script: from a corner on the right wing, the ball was floated into the penalty area and Brenner rose high to head it past the Long An goalkeeper. The visitors' effectiveness came from precise timing and aerial strength, not from intricate combination play. The lead was doubled shortly afterward. Phan The Hung, lively on the left flank, cut inside and delivered a sharp cross. Brenner, with the finishing instinct of a pure number nine, moved into the right position and tapped in from close range. Before the hosts could regroup, the third blow landed. Vu Hong Quan took an accurate free kick, the ball struck the post and bounced out, and Brenner was quickest to react, scoring on the rebound. Three goals, all coming from set pieces or aerial situations, and all bearing the mark of the Brazilian. Paulo Foiani's side displayed pragmatic and efficient football, but also revealed a clear dependence on a single center forward. That was the moment Long An seemed to wake up. Trailing by three goals at home against a higher-tier opponent, the home side pushed their formation forward, accepting the risk of spaces behind to press their opponents. Constant pressure brought a goal back to make it 1-3, scored by Romario Alves, the Brazilian foreign player of Long An. The stadium came alive, and the worst was still to come for the visitors. The second conceded goal came from a serious individual error: center-back Van Dat failed to clear decisively just outside the penalty area, allowing Long An to seize the opportunity and reduce the deficit to 2-3. From a comfortable position, Bac Ninh suddenly found themselves teetering on the edge of dropping points in the final fifteen minutes. Looking back at Bac Ninh's three goals, the visitors' attacking efficiency is clear, but a deeper perspective reveals a structural problem. When a team needs three goals in a match and all of them come from the same player, from dead-ball situations, the natural question arises: what happens if Brenner Marlos is marked out of the game, suspended, or injured? A newly promoted team built around a single focal point can easily be neutralized once opponents have enough data and a specific plan. The defense is an equally serious concern. After leading by three goals, an experienced team usually knows how to slow the game down, control the tempo, and keep the ball to kill time. Bac Ninh failed to do that. They were dragged into the opponent's pressure, retreating deeper and deeper, and nearly paid the price. Van Dat's mistake was individual, but the collective confusion of the whole system under pressure was a team issue, the responsibility of the coaching staff in managing the situation. In terms of data, specific figures on possession or dangerous chances from either side were not recorded in this match, which limits any analysis. But what happened on the pitch said enough: Bac Ninh possess a sharp striker in excellent form, yet their story has only just begun, and a hat-trick cannot hide the gaps behind. Given that Bac Ninh has just been upgraded to a centrally-governed city, the story of an away victory with a foreign player's hat-trick can easily be inflated into a symbol of rising ambition. It is a beautiful story, but professional football knows that fairy tales cannot last without a solid foundation. Two consecutive wins, one against a title contender and one in the National Cup, are positive signals, but the sample size is far too small to draw conclusions about the team's true strength. From Long An's perspective, this match also exposed the thin line between the First Division and the lower half of the V-League. They lost by three goals, but with more time or sharper finishing in the final moments, an upset could have happened. For Bac Ninh, the lesson from those fifteen chaotic minutes should be valued more than Brenner's three goals. This victory is a complete gift for a city entering a new chapter of its history. But football does not hand out gifts forever. Individual goals provide poetry, while lasting victories are always built by the collective. The question for coach Paulo Foiani and his players is not how many goals Brenner scored, but how they will resolve that dependence and fragility before the V-League, with defenses far more experienced than Long An's, becomes a test in which no weakness goes unpunished.