Endless fall in women's volleyball VNL 30 times in a row

South Korean women's volleyball has recorded a disgraceful 30 consecutive losses in the VNL tournament alone.

The Korean women's volleyball team, led by head coach Fernando Morales, lost set score 0-3 (13-25 19-25 20-25) in the third game of the first week of the Volleyball Nations League against the Dominican Republic at Maracaranginho Gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the 19th (Korea time). South Korea, which finished the tournament with three consecutive losses in 2021, will record 30 consecutive losses in the VNL tournament alone as it lost three consecutive games since the opening of the 2024 tournament following 12 consecutive losses in 2022 and 2023.

Korea struggled hard with Jung Ji-yoon scoring 12 points, Kang So-hwi scoring 9 points, Lee Da-hyun scoring 6 points, and Lee Ju-ah scoring 5 points. However, it was not enough to prevent Dominica players' strong serve and resilient attacks, including Apogit spiker Tapia Cruz, who was born in 2004, and tall outside heater Brayelin Martinez, who is 201cm tall, (11 points). South Korea's women's volleyball team, which started the tournament with three consecutive losses, is scheduled to play its fourth match of the tournament against Thailand, ranked 13th in the world, on the 21st.

In 2021, the Korean women's volleyball team, led by head coach Stefano Lavarini (coach of the Polish national team), participated in the VNL competition held just before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, losing to Brazil, Turkiye and the Netherlands in the last three games, ending the competition with three consecutive losses. However, few volleyball fans took seriously the third consecutive VNL victory of Korean women's volleyball at the time. This is because VNL was a "demonstration game" held ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, although most teams participating in the Olympics were like that.

And Korean women's volleyball reached the quarterfinals by beating Kenya, Dominica, and Japan one after another at the Tokyo Olympics, and achieved the legend of the semifinals by winning 3-2 against Turkiye, which had defeated Korea in the VNL in the quarterfinals. The renaissance of Korean women's volleyball, led by "Volleyball Empress" Kim Yeon-koung, ended with a sweet achievement of two Olympic semifinals, followed by coach César Hernández Gonzalez, who was the coach of the national team, taking over the baton of the national team.

However, her two years with Cesar were truly "a series of nightmare." The Korean women's volleyball team, which had significantly weakened after Kim Yeon-koung, Kim Su-ji, and Yang Hyo-jin retired from the national team one after the Tokyo Olympics, suffered humiliating loss of all 12 matches at the 2022 VNL event, which was the first international competition since Cesar took office. After losing 0-3 in four consecutive matches, the team won the final match against Croatia, barely breaking its 16-game losing streak at international competitions.

The national team has made little difference last year. The Korean women's volleyball team continued its disgraceful record of losing all games and earning zero points for the second consecutive year at last year's VNL event. It was the last chance for the team to regain its self-esteem and was humiliated by a reverse sweep by Vietnam at the Hangzhou Asian Games, the first time in 17 years since the Doha Asian Games in 2006. In the end, Cesar stepped down as coach of the Korean national team on Oct. 8 last year, the closing day of the Asian Games.

The Korea Volleyball Association appointed Morales, who coached the Puerto Rican women's volleyball team, as the coach of the women's national team, which had been vacant since the Hangzhou Asian Games in March. Born in 1984, Morales decided not to serve as the coach of another club but exclusively in charge of the Korean national team, raising expectations that she would be the right person to revive the slumping Korean women's volleyball team. However, even a competent coach was not enough to change teams in a short time of less than two months.

As soon as the V-League finished its schedule, Morales convened the national team and worked together for about a month, and participated in the VNL tournament that opened on the 14th. However, Korea, which met China with the highest world ranking (6th) in Asia from its first match on the 15th, lost 0-3 of the set score by losing 6-12 in blocking to China's tall squad. The match against Brazil, ranked second in the world, was also held as a return match for the semifinal match of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Korea's third opponent on Monday was Dominica, a rising powerhouse in Latin America. Dominica is known to play volleyball with Latin American players' unique resilience and athletic abilities, and Korea won the title after a close, full-set battle at the Tokyo Olympics. However, Dominica was ranked ninth in the world and already secured a berth to the Paris Olympics, and it was several places ahead of Korea. Korea had to suffer a shutout loss for three consecutive games, dedicating eight subscores to Dominica.

Among the 16 countries that participated in the VNL this year, Bulgaria ranked the lowest in the world except Korea. In fact, the VNL is too high for Korea, which ranks 43rd in the world, four notches lower than Vietnam (39th), to participate. Although Morales is starting off with a new mindset since her inauguration, the reality that Korea is still facing women's volleyball is the disgraceful record of 30 consecutive wins in the VNL. Now is the time to get rid of the glory of the "Kim Yeon-gyeong era" and rebuild the team with a long-term perspective.
 

BY: 토토사이트