The best lesson I took home from the Asian Games had nothing to do with the scoreboard. It came from watching rivals become teammates.
On 1 October 2026, Team Vietnam won bronze in League of Legends at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. Three of the people who helped make it happen came from GAM: top laner Kiaya, support Taki, and our head coach Naul, who served as Team Vietnam's assistant coach. I've written the full story of the run on gam.gg. This post is about something else.
Built from three clubs
Team Vietnam was built from three Vietnamese clubs: GAM Esports, Team Secret Whale and MGN Vikings Esports. For most of the year, those three clubs compete hard against each other. We compete for wins, for players and for fans. That is how it should be. Rivalries make a league worth watching.
Then the Asian Games came, and all of that had to be put down. Players who try to beat each other every week had to trust each other in every fight. Coaches from different clubs had to agree on one way to play. Our coach Naul served as an assistant, not the head coach, and did the job with total commitment. Nobody asked whose system it was. Everyone asked what Vietnam needed.
What it taught me
As a club owner, my instinct is to protect what we've built. Our players, our methods, our edge. Nagoya reminded me that GAM's mission is bigger than GAM. When a player from another club gets better, Vietnam gets better. When our players share a room with the best from other teams, they come back to GAM sharper too.
I wrote it on LinkedIn a few days after the medal, and I believe it more now: "We may compete at home, but on the international stage, we are ONE Team Vietnam."
It also changed how I think about my job. For years I've talked about building GAM. The bigger job is building the whole Vietnamese scene: the clubs, the national program, the partners, the fans. A medal like this one is proof of what happens when everyone pulls in the same direction.
The semi-final still stings
I won't pretend the 2-0 loss to Chinese Taipei in the semi-final didn't hurt. Our players wanted more, and so did I. But wins show you what's possible, and setbacks show you where you need to grow. We know where the gap is now, and a lot of us are working on it together.
In 2022, GAM represented Vietnam at SEA Games 31 and won gold at home. This time, three clubs did it together on a bigger stage. That is the version of Vietnamese esports I want to keep building.
Read the full story of the run on gam.gg: From SEA Games Gold to Asian Games Bronze: What Vietnam's League of Legends Medal Means.
Step by step, we rise!
