Exciting Women's Volleyball World Cup

Today (August 22) will officially open the Women's Volleyball World Championship - the most prestigious arena in women's volleyball, with a frequency of 1 every 4 years.

The Women's Volleyball World Championship promises to be exciting - Photo: Reuters

This is also the first time Vietnamese volleyball has participated in this arena. It is a historical milestone for the country's volleyball.

The potential candidates

The Women's Volleyball World Championship was first held in 1952 by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB). This is an official tournament held every 4 years.

Since 1970, the world’s top women’s national teams have competed for the title. Since then, the FIVB has changed the competition schedule to a biennial cycle, taking place in odd-numbered years. The 2025 edition will be the first time the world stage will be held in a new format with the participation of the top 32 teams.

Throughout its 70-year history, the throne has belonged to many famous volleyball nations. Accordingly, the Soviet Union (formerly) leads with 5 championships. Next are Japan and Cuba with 3 championships each. China, Russia and Serbia have each won 2 championships. The United States and Italy have each won the trophy once.

In this year's tournament, the strong candidates for the championship are still the teams with strong technical and tactical foundations and depth of force. Serbia, the defending champion of 2 consecutive tournaments (2018 and 2022), is aiming for a historic treble streak - thereby equaling Russia.

Besides, the Chinese team with its all-round players and overwhelming height and jumping ability is always a strong candidate in every tournament, even though it has not won the championship since 1986.

The US are also a team not to be underestimated: they won the title in 2014 and have always been in the world's top 5. Brazil - the current runner-up and currently ranked 2nd in the world - will certainly want to change the color of their medals, Poland (3rd in the world), Türkiye (6th), and the Netherlands (8th) are also strong candidates.

Of course, we cannot forget the Japanese girls - never impressive in height, but always make the sports world look up at every major tournament.

And finally, Italy - the team that has been unbeaten for the past 2 years. The last time Italy won the world championship was more than 2 decades ago. But in the past 1 year, they have won the FIVB Nations League (VNL) 2 consecutive seasons, in between that is the Olympic gold medal in Paris 2024.

Waiting for the "dark horses"

Not only the "big guys", each tournament also has names in the group known as "dark horses" - teams that are not strong in history but promise to cause trouble.

Representatives from South America - besides Brazil, there are Argentina and Colombia. Or North America like Puerto Rico has been making rapid progress in the women's volleyball world recently. African teams like Kenya, Cameroon, although not very outstanding, possess impressive physiques and outstanding flexibility of black people. These teams promise to be unknowns.

Host Thailand is also expected to cause a surprise in the tournament as they are in a fairly easy group. Specifically, it is Group A with Sweden, the Netherlands and Egypt. The Netherlands is considered the strongest team in this group, most likely to take the top spot. Sweden is on par with Thailand, while Egypt is much weaker.

However, even if they pass the group stage, Thailand will have to face opponents from Group H - which includes Serbia and Japan, so their chances of going further are not high.

There are 4 teams participating in the world tournament for the first time, namely Vietnam, Sweden, Slovakia and Slovenia. In the evaluation of the world volleyball community, the representatives participating for the first time are obviously not considered candidates for the championship (or to go far in the tournament).

But because of that, they did not face any pressure and were full of enthusiasm to make history.

This year’s tournament will be held in Thailand, marking the first time the women’s world championship has been held in Southeast Asia. The group stage will take place from August 22 to August 28 in four major Thai cities: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Nakhon Ratchasima.

The knockout stage will run from August 29 to September 7. Unlike in the U21 Championship, teams eliminated early will be eliminated one by one, rather than progressing to the qualifying round.

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HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/soi-dong-giai-bong-chuyen-nu-the-gioi-2025082210143546.htm