The Vietnamese women's volleyball team had a match that was not inferior to South Korea, but the decisive moments caused the team to collapse. The 1-3 defeat (21-25, 21-25, 28-26, 18-25) caused coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet's team to close the group stage in second place in Group D.
The most worrying thing lies in step one. Under pressure from South Korea's serves, Vietnam's first-pass system was often unstable. When the first ball was not good, the setter immediately fell into a passive position, making attacking options more predictable.
The first set is the clearest proof. Vietnam once led 21-19 but could not maintain the advantage. South Korea took advantage of inaccurate handling situations to score 6 points in a row, winning back 25-21. First-foul errors appeared right at the time Vietnam needed to maintain the most certainty.
Defense and covering ability are also not really tight. Vietnam has good blocks or touch touches, but maintaining defense after the first situation is not stable. Against a South Korea that has the ability to create continuous pressure, small gaps behind the block are quickly exploited.
Notably, the problem is not only in technique but also in the ability to finish the set. Set 3, Vietnam led 20-17 and then let the opponent equalize 20-20. At the score of 24-22, the team had two set-points but could not take advantage of them and had to prolong the tug-of-war to 28-26 to win.
This shows that Vietnam is completely capable of creating a fair game, but has not yet achieved stability in the decisive points. A few consecutive errors are enough to make the advantage disappear very quickly.
This defeat does not affect the quarter-final ticket, but makes Vietnam rank second in Group D and will face China in the next round. This will be a higher-level test, when limitations in the first step, defense and ability to hold points at the end of the set need to be resolved if Vietnam wants to create a good game against a strong opponent.
