Korean women's volleyball returns to VNL with no loss for the first time in two years

Coach Fernando Morales (center) of the Korean women's volleyball team instructs his players during practice at the JoongAng Girls' High School gymnasium in western Seoul on May 1. [NEWS1]

The South Korean women's volleyball team, led by new head coach Fernando Morales, will begin its 2024 Volleyball Nations League (VNL) journey in Brazil on Tuesday after two years of failure in the annual tournament, losing all 24 games.

VNL, which began in 2018, sees 16 countries compete in multiple locations around the world.

South Korea has suffered from disappointing results over the past two years, losing all 12 games in 2022 and repeating the same thing last year.

South Korea's opening game against China on Tuesday will be Morales' first game as head coach. He took over in March after former head coach Cesar Hernandez was fired last October.

During Hernandez's nearly two-year tenure, the team not only lost all 24 VNL games, but also lost seven in the Paris Olympic qualifiers and finished fifth at last year's Asian Games.

In addition to Choi Jeong-min, a 21-year-old middle blocker from Hwaseong IBK Altos, Coach Morales called up regular players such as outside hitter Kang So-hui from Gimcheon Korea Expressway High Pass and Jeong Ji-yoon from Suwon Hyundai Construction Hill State. . .

Kang joined the national team on the back of his good performance, scoring 444 points in the 2023-24 V League. Park Jeong-ah, captain of the Gwangju Pepper Savings Bank AI Peppers national team, who has scored 468 points in league games, will also participate along with Kang.

During a training session earlier this month, Morales focused on speed and diversification of attacking patterns, something the team lacked in the 2023 VNL.

Since ace Kim Young-kyung retired from the national team after reaching the semi-finals at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the national team's offense has declined.

If the national team can regain its former glory in this year's VNL, South Korea's FIVB rankings will rise, having plummeted from 14th in 2021 to 40th as of Monday.

South Korea will play sixth-place China in their first match on Tuesday. The most recent head-to-head competition between the two sides ended with South Korea losing 3-0 at the Hangzhou Asian Games last fall.

Following the first match, South Korea will play third-place Brazil on Thursday, followed by eighth-place Dominican Republic on May 18th and 13th-place Thailand on May 19th.

The game against Thailand is scheduled to conclude the first week of the 2024 VNL schedule, with South Korea heading to the United States in the second week from May 28 to June 2, before traveling to the United States in the third week from June 11 to 16. Head to Japan.

Text: Baek Ji-hwan [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]