Alarm bell for Asian women's volleyball

Japan's top-four finish at the 2025 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship cannot hide the harsh reality of Asian teams.

The success of the Japanese women's volleyball team cannot hide the decline of Asia - Photo: FIVB

Asia has a total of 4 teams participating in this year's tournament: China, Japan, Vietnam and host Thailand.

Japan cannot hold out forever

Japanese volleyball is famous for its tenacious defense, whether it is the men's or women's team. They do not have big, strong athletes. But in return, they are very agile and read situations very quickly. This philosophy has followed Japanese volleyball for a long time, because they understand that competing in terms of physique with European and South American teams is impossible.

At the 2025 Women's Volleyball World Championship, Japan has the shortest average height, at just 1.75m. They still advanced to the semi-finals after victories over taller opponents like Serbia and the Netherlands. But the problem gradually became apparent when Japan could no longer defend.

After all, the key to volleyball is to score points. You have to score points to win. Defense helps Japan withstand attacks from opponents, but it cannot help them score points.

Attackers like Mayu Ishikawa and Yukiko Wada still scored impressively, but their performance gradually decreased as they advanced. Wada scored 19 attack points in the semi-final against Türkiye, but also had 5 offensive errors and 14 other unsuccessful attempts.

Ishikawa scored 17 points, but also lost 8 points and failed 16 times. The problem with Japanese attackers is that they do not have strong smashing power, and their ability to get into a momentum is limited, making them vulnerable to blocking. That is the weakness of being short and light.

Chinese volleyball is in decline - Photo: FIVB

China declines, Thailand is not good enough

Japan made it to the semi-finals anyway, an acceptable result. China, despite being the favourites, were eliminated in the round of 16, meaning the first knockout round.

It was also a loss to France, a team that has never been highly regarded in women's volleyball. China may use the excuse of preparing for future tournaments such as the 2028 Olympics, so they advocate using young, inexperienced athletes.

But with their level, China should at least reach the quarterfinals and not be eliminated so early. Looking at the past names, it is really not easy to see the future for Chinese women's volleyball. No one has brought excitement and enthusiasm like the previous legends such as Lang Ping, Zhu Ting, Yan Ni, Ding Xia...

China is in decline, while host Thailand is still standing still. Despite being given the opportunity to compete in the Volleyball Nations League for many years, the team from Southeast Asia has not made much progress. This year, they were even almost relegated.

At the 2025 World Cup, Thailand is quite lucky to be the host and in the same group with weaker teams, including newcomer Sweden. Otherwise, they might have had to stop early in the group stage like the Vietnam team, also a newcomer.

In addition to these four names, two other teams have almost disappeared, namely Korea and Kazakhstan, despite their glorious pasts. This is truly an alarm bell for Asian women's volleyball in the face of the strong rise of European teams.

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DUC KHUE

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/hoi-chuong-bao-dong-cho-bong-chuyen-nu-chau-a-20250908102031024.htm