In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 20 April 1972
- Birthplace
- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Country
- Vietnam
- Nationality
- Vietnamese
- Known for
- Winning three Vietnamese Golden Balls and coaching SHB Đà Nẵng to two league titles
- Playing position
- Striker
- National-team highlight
- 1998 Tiger Cup runner-up
- Golden Balls
- 1995, 1997 and 2002
- V.League coaching titles
- 2009 and 2012
Why this life matters
Đức joined elite performance, an early overseas move and domestic coaching success across the transition to professional Vietnamese football.
Timeline
Key moments
Born in Ho Chi Minh City
Born on 20 April.
Won the first Golden Ball
Became the inaugural winner of Vietnam’s leading individual football award.
Scored an Asian Cup qualifying hat-trick
Scored three times against Chinese Taipei in a 4–1 Vietnam win on 4 August.
Reached the Tiger Cup final
Vietnam finished runner-up to Singapore on home soil.
Played abroad in China
Joined Chongqing Lifan on loan in an early overseas move for a Vietnamese player.
Completed a domestic double
Coached SHB Đà Nẵng to the V.League and National Cup.
Won another V.League title
Guided Đà Nẵng back to the national championship.
Requested to leave Đà Nẵng
The ASEAN Football Federation reported his departure request after a long spell as head coach.
Coached Công An Ho Chi Minh City
Registered as head coach for the season; the league announced his replacement before round 24 in May 2026.
The first Vietnamese Golden Ball
Lê Huỳnh Đức emerged as a centre-forward in the generation that carried Vietnam back into regional football during the 1990s. At club level he was associated with Ho Chi Minh City Police. In 1995 he became the first men’s winner of the Vietnamese Golden Ball, an award organised by Sài Gòn Giải Phóng. The newspaper’s own retrospective lists him again as the winner in 1997 and 2002. Those three awards span different stages of his playing career, rather than a single outstanding season.
A contemporary 2004 career profile also records the 1995 national championship with his club and national-cup wins in 1998, 2000 and 2001. These domestic results help explain why he remained a prominent figure even as Vietnamese football changed its league structures. His later coaching record should be read alongside, not substituted for, a playing career with both club trophies and repeated individual recognition.
National-team tournaments and disputed totals
With Vietnam, Đức appeared in Asian and Southeast Asian competitions. The Asian Football Confederation’s historical results record him scoring three times in a 4–1 Asian Cup qualifier against Chinese Taipei on 4 August 1996. Vietnam reached the 1998 Tiger Cup final on home soil, but Singapore won the decisive match 1–0. The runners-up finish was an important regional result; it was not the championship itself.
Retrospective goal totals need care. VnExpress reports 34 national-team goals between 1995 and 2004, while a later Vietnamese report lists 27 and a separate contemporary review says the 34-goal compilation includes friendlies. The ASEAN Football Federation’s 2017 account gives 60 caps, whereas other retrospectives cite 66. Neither figure is presented here as a universally agreed official total. Competition records, with named matches and dates, provide firmer points of reference than an unqualified all-time tally.
Sources for this section: [6] · [7] · [8] · [9] · [10] · [11]
China loan and Đà Nẵng titles
In 2001 Đức spent four months with Chongqing Lifan in China. A VnExpress account describes him as an early Vietnamese footballer to play for a foreign club and records one goal in four appearances. The short spell should not be mistaken for a long overseas career, but it came at a time when such moves were unusual for Vietnamese players and remains part of his place in the sport’s professional-era history.
He later moved into coaching at SHB Đà Nẵng. The club won the V.League in 2009 and the National Cup that year, then took another league title in 2012. The ASEAN Football Federation also records that his side reached the AFC Cup quarter-finals in 2010. This was success in both domestic and continental competition, although it did not mean Đà Nẵng won the AFC Cup. In November 2017 the federation reported that Đức had asked to leave after a decade with the club, showing that the first long coaching spell had ended rather than continued uninterrupted.
A later coaching career
Đức subsequently returned to Đà Nẵng and coached Becamex Bình Dương. League records also place him with Công An Ho Chi Minh City for the 2025–26 season. That appointment connected his managerial career to the city where he had made his name as a player, but it should not be presented as an open-ended current post.
On 21 May 2026 the V.League organiser announced that Phùng Thanh Phương had been registered to replace Đức as Công An Ho Chi Minh City head coach from round 24. His career thus has several distinct chapters: national-team forward, early overseas player, two-time league-title coach and later manager at multiple clubs. The evidence supports those milestones; it does not justify treating disputed goal or cap totals as settled facts.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Lê Huỳnh Đức
- Who is Lê Huỳnh Đức?
- Lê Huỳnh Đức is a former Vietnam striker and championship-winning coach. Đức joined elite performance, an early overseas move and domestic coaching success across the transition to professional Vietnamese football.
- What is Lê Huỳnh Đức best known for?
- Lê Huỳnh Đức is best known for winning three Vietnamese Golden Balls and coaching SHB Đà Nẵng to two league titles.
- When and where was Lê Huỳnh Đức born?
- Lê Huỳnh Đức was born on 20 April 1972 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Nguyễn Hồng Sơn
A fellow leader of Vietnam’s 1990s football generation.
- Lê Công Vinh
A later Golden Ball-winning striker whose overseas career followed a different path.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Vietnam NewsDuc to make return as SHB Da Nang coach
- 2. Vietnam NewsLittle Squirrel joins pantheon of greats
- 3. VietnamPlus / Vietnam News AgencyA new generation has big boots to fill
- 4. Sài Gòn Giải PhóngVietnamese Golden Ball winners, first ten editions
- 5. Tuổi TrẻLê Huỳnh Đức career profile, 2004
- 6. Asian Football ConfederationAFC Asian Cup history book: 1996 qualifying results
- 7. ASEAN Football FederationAFF Suzuki Cup past winners and results
- 8. VnExpress InternationalVietnamese footballers that gained overseas exposure
VnExpress reports 34 goals from 1995 to 2004 and a four-month China spell; its cumulative goal figure is not treated as a universal official tally.
- 9. Lao ĐộngTiến Linh and Vietnam team goal totals
A later report counts 27 goals in 62 appearances, illustrating that national-team totals vary with match inclusion and source methodology.
- 10. Báo Nghệ AnVietnamese strikers: a retrospective and differing goal totals
A 2020 review describes its 66-cap and 34-goal numbers as incomplete statistics and explicitly says the 34 goals include friendly matches.
- 11. ASEAN Football FederationHuynh Duc on the move
- 12. Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock CompanySHB Đà Nẵng win the 2012 V.League
- 13. Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock CompanyLê Huỳnh Đức coach registration
- 14. Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company2025–26 V.League notice 20
The league notice establishes replacement as registered head coach from round 24 of the 2025–26 season; the page does not assert a later current coaching post.
- 15. Wikimedia CommonsLê Huỳnh Đức — portrait and reuse record
