Vietnam Women's Volleyball Decline: Two Broken Wings and the Weight on Thanh Thuy

I sat in front of the screen in Osaka, rewinding the tape of the Vietnam women's national team's match, and paused on a play nobody would remember. The ball went out to position 4, the outside hitter jumped, and the opponent's double block closed in front of her — how many times in that same match, I lost count. What kept me sitting there longer was the score sheet: Vietnam's top scorer in that tournament was a middle blocker, Bich Thuy.

In volleyball, that sounds like a joke. The middle blocker attacks quickly at position 3, feeding off short, low sets. She only shines when the opponent's block is stretched wide to the wings, when the other side has to worry about positions 2 and 4 first. A middle blocker leading the scoring chart means the wings have gone dark, and if the wings go dark, the whole attacking system goes dark with them.

I have followed Vietnam women's volleyball long enough to know this is a story of a whole year, not of one match. A year in which everything can be read from a lopsided score sheet.

Looking back at the past season, the results say almost everything. At the AVC Cup — a tournament Vietnam had ruled for three straight years — the team finished third and missed the final. At the SEA V.Cup, they were runners-up in stage one, then lost 0-3 in stage two. At the Asian Championship, they won exactly one match all tournament. And at the Asiad, the target was a top-four finish; the reality was seventh place.

What matters is not the losses to China, Japan or South Korea — teams Vietnam has never been allowed to dream of beating. What matters lies elsewhere: Vietnam lost to Indonesia twice, to the Philippines, and to Kazakhstan. A year ago, these were opponents Vietnam was still ranked above.

A year ago, this team had won the AVC Cup, won the SEA V.Cup, and played in the World Championship. That generation, from 2026 to 2026, was regarded as the deepest and most balanced squad in the history of Vietnam women's volleyball. Expectation was built from those results, and the expectation never met this season's team.

I have not forgotten the days when the stands blazed for the men's matches while the women had to wait until late at night to be broadcast. At 56, after all these years on the sidelines, a team's decline no longer surprises me. What bothers me is how people name that decline: blaming a star's form, a generation's fading legs, a team simply being past its time.

What happened to Vietnam's women this season has two layers of cause, and the heaviest layer belongs to people, not tactics.

The team lost four pillars. Middle blocker Nguyen Thi Trinh was absent for family reasons. Opposite Hoang Thi Kieu Trinh was out injured. Outside hitter Vi Thi Nhu Quynh left the team for personal reasons. Outside hitter Nguyen Thi Uyen was also out with a serious injury.

Four players, in four different positions, for four different reasons, and not one of them was missing because of form. For a volleyball nation with as thin a talent pool as Vietnam, that is a shock no team can absorb without a deep backup system — which Vietnam did not have this year.

The calls during the pandemic taught me one thing: sport, first of all, is human lives. The human lives here are a middle blocker who had to leave the team for her family, an opposite with a broken leg, an outside hitter who chose her own path, and another outside hitter in the hospital.

The consequence appeared immediately at the opposite position. When Kieu Trinh was lost, there was no natural opposite left to replace her. The coaching staff had to push Doan Thi Xuan, Thanh Thuy and Nguyen Thi Uyen — all outside hitters — into position 2. That is a very different role: different approach angle, different tempo, different blocking matchups. An outside hitter pushed into the opposite role typically loses both attacking efficiency and right-side blocking.

This is the causal link I want to underline: Vietnam's game became easy to read because the backup system was not deep enough to preserve the tactical structure, not because the players got weaker; and a patched-together structure is always easier to read than an intact one.

The result was that both wings, positions 4 and 2, were blocked again and again. Not blocked in a few decisive rallies, but in a repeating pattern. When an outside hitter is locked down that thoroughly, the ball is forced into the middle, and the middle blocker becomes the scorer. Bich Thuy rose not because she suddenly became superior, but because she was the only one still receiving the ball in a situation that could become a point.

In a healthy Asian quick-attack system, the middle is the threat that frees the wings. The opponent has to worry about position 3, so the wings get space. In Vietnam this season, the roles inverted: the middle became the escape valve. That is the sign of a system broken at its core link, not of an individual losing form.

There is another detail worth thinking about. For the middle to attack at position 3, the ball has to be good enough for the setter to organise. If Vietnam could still feed the middle, that means serve reception was still functioning at some level. The problem lay elsewhere: the quality of the wing attacks, and the setter's distribution.

In other words, Vietnam lost its wing attack, not its ball control. These are two very different problems, and the fixes are very different too.

Indirect evidence lies in the tempo. When an outside hitter is repeatedly blocked by a double block, the usual cause is a ball arriving too slowly, giving the opponent time to organise. Setter Tran Thi Kim Thoa's reported inconsistency this season fits that picture, though I have to admit the confidence level of this inference is not high.

But if I stop at tactics, I would miss the heaviest part of the story. That is Thanh Thuy.

She is the captain, the number-one weapon, and the most scrutinised person on the team. At the Asiad, Thanh Thuy scored 36 points, but at low efficiency. Looking at the score sheet, 36 points looks impressive — until you weigh it against the number of attempts it took. What is worth asking lies elsewhere: why did she have to attack so much?

People tell me I write too personally. But I believe it is precisely the personal that makes a voice. Thanh Thuy's personal story here is a club season in Japan with Gunma Green Wings, a domestic season with VTV Binh Dien Long An, and then from January, four national-team tournaments. Four tournaments, plus two club seasons, within twelve months.

An athlete cannot peak four times in one year. The body does not work that way. No recovery time, no build-and-release cycle, no phase in which to peak. The result was a season in which she was still on court, still carrying the ball, but below her best — and criticised for it.

This is where I want to speak plainly: the problem for Vietnam's women this season lies in the dependence on Thanh Thuy, not in Thanh Thuy's form.

A whole team was built around one attacking weapon, and when that weapon wore down under the workload, the whole team collapsed. There was no second option, no contingency plan, no one to share the load. And as the other pillars fell away one by one, that burden grew heavier still.

On the upper line, the picture was no brighter. Kim Thoa, Bich Thuy, Khanh Dang — long-serving faces — almost never peaked at the same time as one another. In a collective, a squad-wide dip is not necessarily a disaster; what is deadly is that no one peaked at the same moment. That is the sign of a team whose physical and scheduling management has fallen out of rhythm.

This is where I want to go against the majority.

The popular telling of this season is the story of a golden generation that has burned out. A team that once won titles, once played the World Championship, and then fell. It sounds dramatic, and it spreads easily.

I think that telling is wrong at a core point. It assumes this season's team is the same team that won last year, differing only in form. But it is not. The team that took the court this season was missing four pillars, pushed three outside hitters into the opposite position out of position, and placed the entire attacking burden on one person who had played continuously for twelve months. Comparing that team to the one that won is comparing two different things.

I also do not agree with the easy blame aimed at head coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet. He has been criticised for failing to adjust at important moments, and that may be true. But a coach can only adjust with what he has on the bench, and when that bench is not deep enough, adjusting is an impossible task.

I left the Russia World Cup with a grievance. It has not faded; it has only turned into heat. The grievance here points at an easy reading: attributing every failure to the players and the coach, when the causes lie deeper, in the structure.

A year ago, Vietnam earned the region's respect for its resilience. This year, they lost to Indonesia twice, to the Philippines, and to Kazakhstan. That cannot be denied. But one more thing needs to be seen: those opponents have improved. This year's story of Southeast Asian women's volleyball includes both Vietnam's slide and Indonesia's and the Philippines' rise. Vietnam has fallen behind both in absolute terms and in a race where those behind it are running faster.

If there is one thing I want to carry out of this season, it is a change in how the question is asked. Instead of asking why the team declined, ask what is missing for the team to stand firm when it loses players. The answer lies in the depth of the development system, in the ability to manage stars' competitive load, and in a clear squad-usage plan instead of patched-up fixes on the spot.

What I value most in women's sport is not victory, but how they rise after every time prejudice knocks them down. These defeats are not the end. They are a wake-up call, ringing at the right moment — before one season's slide becomes a whole cycle's drift.

And for me, someone who has followed this team since the days when nobody bothered to broadcast its matches, the memory of a faded year cannot erase the belief that those young women deserve to be judged by a fairer system, not by a terse score sheet.