Vietnam Women's Volleyball: Valuable Lessons from the World's Leading Playground

(Dan Tri) - In the first time participating in the World Volleyball Championship, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team lost all 3 matches. However, we still learned many valuable lessons.

The 2025 World Volleyball Championship in Thailand is the first tournament in history that the Vietnamese women's volleyball team has participated in. Coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet's team lost all 3 matches against Poland (1-3), Germany (0-3) and Kenya (0-3).

However, what we gain from this tournament is not simply the result, but the experience of appearing in the world's top tournament. From there, Vietnamese women's volleyball hopes to do better in future participations.

The real big players

Unlike the SEA V-League Southeast Asian Volleyball Championship, nor the SEA Games, at the world championship, there is no easy match for the Vietnamese women's volleyball team.

The opponents of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team at the world championship are all very strong (Photo: Volleyball World).

Coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet's girls hardly had any leisurely matches, because all the opponents we faced in Thailand in the past few days were very strong. That is what revealed the depth of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team.

In particular, facing two European teams, Poland (ranked 3rd in the world) and Germany (ranked 11th in the world), which are both physically superior to Vietnamese athletes and possess comprehensive techniques, the difference in skill level between Vietnamese athletes and their opponents is even more evident.

In addition, the pillars continuously went through stressful matches, causing them to lose serious physical strength in the final match of the group stage against Kenya. This is a huge difference between the world championship and the regional tournaments that Vietnamese volleyball is familiar with.

In regional tournaments, it is almost only the matches with Thailand that make the Vietnamese girls really struggle. In regional tournaments, we still occasionally have matches against weaker opponents so that the coaching staff can adjust personnel, calculate the physical strength and performance of the athletes.

But in the world championship, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team must play with 100% concentration in every match, and must exert maximum effort in every match, to avoid being left too far behind by the opponent.

With such intense competition, it is difficult for the coach of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team to come up with a comprehensive plan: avoiding heavy losses while preserving the athletes' strength and endurance in the next match.

Indelible marks

In the context of many challenges as mentioned above, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team still created some clear marks in Thailand.

The most notable highlight was the win over the Polish women's team on the opening day. The fact that the Vietnamese women's volleyball team led the world's third-ranked team 1-0 on August 23 was a huge surprise.

The Vietnamese women's volleyball team once surprised the world's third-ranked team Poland (Photo: Volleyball World).

The FIVB website commented: “The Vietnamese women's volleyball team played bravely against the Polish women's team, in the opening match of the two teams at the world championship.”

“The European women's volleyball team unexpectedly let the Asian representative take the lead in the first half. Poland then found their form, before the European women's team claimed their first win of the ongoing tournament in Thailand.

On the FIVB rankings, the Polish team is ranked 3rd, while the Vietnamese women's volleyball team is ranked 22nd (at the time of the match between the Vietnamese and Polish women's teams). However, the 22nd ranked team from Asia won the first game of the match," the FIVB homepage shared.

The leading sports newspaper of the host country Thailand, Siam Sport, wrote: "The Vietnamese women's volleyball team made history when they had their first win in the world arena, against the Polish women's team."

These historic moments occurred in the first half. In this half, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team performed very impressively. They defeated the Polish women's team 25-23. In addition to the first half, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team had a very good fourth half.

They attacked well, but Poland is still a very strong team. The Vietnamese women's volleyball team only lost the fourth set with a score of 22-25. In the end, the Polish team won 3-1," are still the lines written in Siam Sport.

Outstanding faces

Although the Vietnamese women's team was not really successful in its first time entering the world arena, we still introduced some faces that made a strong impression on opponents.

Thanh Thuy (3) and Nhu Quynh (16) had great matches against the Polish and German teams (Photo: Volleyball World).

The first face that fans everywhere mentioned was middle blocker Vi Thi Nhu Quynh. This girl scored 20 points for the Vietnamese women's volleyball team in the match against a very strong opponent, Poland.

A fan expressed his opinion on the official FIVB fanpage: “The Vietnamese women’s volleyball team played very beautifully. I was especially impressed with the middle blocker of the Vietnamese women’s team (Nhu Quynh). This middle blocker scored a lot of points for the Vietnamese women’s volleyball team in the match against the Polish women’s team.”

The next character mentioned is the main striker Tran Thi Thanh Thuy. Facing a very strong, very tall blocker of the German women's team, including Camila Weitzel, Lina Alsmeier and Marie Schoelzel, Thanh Thuy still scored 17 points.

This score helped Thanh Thuy become the top scorer in the match between the Vietnamese women's volleyball team and the German women's team on August 25, surpassing many strong athletes from the European team.

The FIVB website commented: “Captain Tran Thi Thanh Thuy of the Vietnamese women’s volleyball team was the only player on the team to reach double digits. She scored 17 points, all from attacks.”

Thanh Thuy always shows her fighting spirit and composure against world-class opponents, thanks to the experience she has gained from competing in many Asian and European countries during her career.

Therefore, the experience of Thanh Thuy and Nhu Quynh is what the Vietnamese women's volleyball team needs more of, in the future returns to the world championship.

After this year's world championship, we know what kind of force we need, how to develop the domestic tournament to always have better human resources, providing for the national team. We know what more Vietnamese volleyball needs to prepare, to do better in the next times.

That is a very valuable lesson that if it had not gone through the world championship in Thailand, Vietnamese women's volleyball would not have been able to have!

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/bong-chuyen-nu-viet-nam-bai-hoc-quy-gia-o-san-choi-hang-dau-the-gioi-20250829005656536.htm