The Vietnamese women's volleyball team still has a chance to participate in the VNL next season, although it is very small - Photo: D.K.
Specifically, the Korean women's volleyball team ranked last among the 18 participating teams with only 1 win. In addition, their match points were 5, exactly 1 point less than Thailand (also only won 1 match).
In the past, VNL - the tournament established in 2018 did not apply relegation to the core teams (the core teams when the tournament was established). Therefore, for many years, Korea or Thailand have never worried about losing tickets to VNL, even though Korea ranked last in the table for 2 consecutive years (2022 and 2023).
Things have changed since this year’s tournament when VNL expanded from 16 to 18 teams, and the last-placed team was eliminated from the tournament next year by default. So who will Korea’s spot in VNL 2026 belong to? That is the team ranked highest in the 2025 year-end rankings, and not yet in VNL.
That means that to win this ticket, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team must at least enter the top 18 of the FIVB rankings by the end of the year. This is an extremely difficult task.
According to the current rankings, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team is currently ranked 26th with 141.21 points.
Meanwhile, the 18th ranked team, Puerto Rico, currently has 182.58 points. But Ukraine - the 15th ranked team - has not even secured a ticket to the VNL despite having 192.1 points.
It can be seen that in order to hope to surpass the above candidates, Vietnamese volleyball must win at least 40 points in the coming time. The focus will be on the World Championship taking place in August in Thailand.
FIVB has a scoring system similar to FIFA in soccer. Accordingly, the points each team receives after each win will be based on the difference in rankings, as well as the weight of the tournament.
Along with the Olympics, the World Championship has a weight of 50, higher than the VNL (40) and much higher than regional tournaments like the AVC (30).
At the World Cup, Vietnam was in the same group with Poland, Germany and Kenya. Germany and Poland are two extremely strong representatives in the world's top 10.
The challenge is also an opportunity for the Vietnamese volleyball girls. According to the current formula, an absolute victory against Poland (ranked 4th in the world) can bring up to 15.35 points, and 14.1 points if they also beat Germany (ranked 10th in the world) 3-0.
Even if Vietnam wins against Kenya (ranked 22nd in the world), they can still earn a maximum of 9.7 points. This is a huge number compared to regional tournaments. For example, in the final of the AVC Cup 2025, Vietnam won the Philippines 3-0 but only got 5 points.
Although the hypothesis that Vietnam will defeat strong teams like Germany and Poland is almost non-existent, it shows that the possibility of Vietnam gaining 40-50 points in the World Cup is still there, if the team can advance to the quarter-finals. At the same time, it comes with the condition that the teams in the top 18 competition must lose.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/kha-nang-bong-chuyen-nu-viet-nam-thay-han-quoc-du-sieu-giai-vnl-20250716103638793.htm
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