At the media day that heralded the start of the new season of professional volleyball, there was no shortage of talk about the team that fell short of a gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games. The South Korean women’s volleyball team, which reached the quarterfinals of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, has been on a downward spiral since its main players Kim Yeon-kyung, Kim Soo-ji (Heungkuk Life) and Yang Hyo-jin (Hyundai E&C) returned the flag. The Volleyball Nations League (VNL) suffered a 27-game losing streak until this year, and the team’s qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games ended with a seven-match losing streak. At the Hangzhou Asian Games, it was only the second time in 17 years that the country had been denied a medal at an Asian Games.
Kim Ho-cheol, the longtime head coach of the men’s national team at IBK, nicknamed “Burluck Ho-cheol,” did not mince words in expressing his thoughts. “I think it will be very difficult to recover in the current state,” Kim said bluntly when asked about the national team at the 2023-2024 V-League Women’s Media Day at the Cheongdam Rivera Hotel in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. The Korean Volleyball Association announced after the Hangzhou Asian Games that it was parting ways with men’s head coach Lim Do-heon and women’s head coach Cesar Gonzalez. Critics inside and outside the volleyball world pointed out that removing just two coaches is not enough to solve the problems of the men’s and women’s national teams, which are currently mired in a parallel slump.
“I know it’s a sensitive issue, but my opinion is that unless we change the system, we’re going to continue to struggle,” Kim said, suggesting that the coaches should sit down and discuss what to do for the future of Korean volleyball. The Korean Volleyball Association runs the national team, while the Korean Volleyball Federation, which runs the V-League, supports the national team from behind the scenes .Kim suggested that professional club managers shouldn’t just sit on the sidelines, but work together on the future of Korean volleyball. Marcello Abondanza (Italy), head coach of Heungkuk Life, also spoke out in favor of Korean volleyball, saying, “The conditions are in place to be a champion,” but “if we want to raise the level, we need to increase the number of foreign players, which will help increase the quality of domestic players.”
Starting this season, the V-League will implement an Asian quota system, which will allow teams to bring in one more player from Asia in addition to the existing one foreign player per team .Some domestic players are opposed to the introduction of the Asian quota, but the cause of “enhancing international competitiveness” prevents them from raising their voices. When asked why they should watch the V-League and what they can show, the representatives of the clubs said they would reward them with entertaining matches. Park Jung-ah (Pepper Savings Bank), the captain of the Hangzhou Asian Games volleyball team, said, “We have a lot of new players and young players, so we will be able to show them something interesting.” Yang Hyo-jin said, “Last year’s season was also difficult to predict until the end. The V-League has its own unique flavor,” 온라인카지노 she said, calling for interest.