In 2025, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team will continue to be busy with its international competition schedule. Coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet and his team will compete in 6 tournaments including the AVC Challenge Cup, the World Championship, SEA V.League (2 stages), VTV Cup and SEA Games 33.
After a series of impressive achievements in 2023 and 2024, 2025 is expected to continue to witness breakthroughs in the expertise of the national women's team. To prepare for this, human resources are the top priority.
Besides the generation of players who are in their prime, playing domestically and have left their mark in recent times such as Bich Tuyen, Nguyen Thi Trinh, Tu Linh..., the Vietnamese women's volleyball team also places their hopes on players who are playing abroad to accumulate experience, expertise, and be ready to contribute to the team in the near future.
Currently, Vietnamese women's volleyball has two faces playing abroad - main attacker Tran Thi Thanh Thuy and middle attacker Tran Thi Bich Thuy.
For Thanh Thuy, wearing the Gresik Petrokimia Pupuk shirt in the 2025 Indonesian National Championship marks the 6th trip abroad in this player's career. Returning from injury, the 1997-born striker had an impressive debut in the new team's shirt, helping the home team win 3-0 (25-20, 25-23, 25-20) against Jakarta Pertamina Enduro.
According to the organizers' statistics, Thanh Thuy was the player who scored the most points for Gresik Petrokimia in the last match with 14 points (13 attack points, 1 serving point, achieving a scoring efficiency of 52%). Following her were the remaining foreign players of Gresik - Kitania Medina (12 points), Maya Indri (11 points) and Rika (9 points).
Thanh Thuy was also the second highest scorer in the entire match, behind only Nadila Leona of Jakarta Pertamina with 15 points.
Both good at attacking and solid at defending, Thanh Thuy is showing a positive comeback after a period affected by injury.
Thanh Thuy is also the captain of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team in 2023 and a member of the team in 2024. She is always given the opportunity to compete abroad by the VTV Binh Dien Long An team. This helps Thanh Thuy continue to accumulate more experience and compete, promising to help the national women's team when returning to perform international duties.
The remaining face is Tran Thi Bich Thuy. The middle blocker of the Duc Giang Chemicals team was borrowed by GS Caltex Seoul Kixx to compete in the 2024-2025 Korean National Women's Volleyball Championship. The Vietnamese hitter will fill the Asian slot of main blocker Stefanie Weiler (Australia) - who had to leave the team due to a serious injury.
"I was very surprised to be selected. It was a joy, an honor and also a pressure for me. Everything was very new. Hopefully, my first time in Korea will be a good start. I will try to compete well to help the GS team have positive results this season," Bich Thuy shared.
Bich Thuy is a face that makes many fans regret not being in the Vietnam women's volleyball team in 2024.
However, with this trip abroad, she is expected to compete well, leave an impression, and gain the trust of coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet to get a position in 2025.
Thailand women's volleyball is a typical example of the effectiveness after many years of investment in women's volleyball. That is, they send players abroad to compete to achieve good skills, then return to the national team to compete, achieving high results.
By creating conditions for players to go abroad as they are now, Vietnamese women's volleyball is probably learning from such an effective way of doing things. The Vietnam Volleyball Federation and clubs also need to build relationships and connections to find more opportunities for players to go abroad to develop their skills.
