Thanh Hóa

Fourteen thousand seats is all Thanh Hóa Stadium holds, a modest ground even by Vietnamese league standards, and it has stayed the club's home through every rebrand the side has carried. That history runs long: what plays today as Thanh Hóa began in 1962 as a provincial youth team under the Thanh Hóa Sports Committee, then passed through spells as a mechanical-industry side and a police team before the modern club took shape in 2009. The 1962 date survives as the official founding year regardless.

Supporters know the team as the Lam Sơn Warriors, a name pulled from the 15th-century uprising that Lê Lợi led in this part of the country — a reference to a rebellion, not a football memory. That same regional identity sharpens whenever Thanh Hóa meets Sông Lam Nghệ An: the Derby Bắc Trung Bộ, the North Central Coast derby, carries weight beyond the table.

The V.League 1 title has never come to Thanh Hóa, despite finishing runners-up in 2017 and 2018 and third in both 2014 and 2015. The Cúp Quốc gia is where the club has actually broken through. In 2023, they beat Viettel on penalties, 5–3, after a goalless final, to lift the trophy, then retained it the following season — the closest thing the club has to a golden run. A Super Cup followed each of those cup wins, in 2009 and again in 2023.

Nguyễn Anh Đức took charge as head coach carrying his own pedigree: a former Vietnam international striker, Golden Ball winner in 2015, who had previously managed Becamex Binh Duong before arriving at Thanh Hóa. With the National Cup won in successive years, the league title neither side has yet secured for Thanh Hóa remains the target the club plays toward now.