Echoes from Empty Courts: When Vietnamese Volleyball Learns to Listen to the Defeated

I still remember vividly the May morning in 2026 in Bangkok. The Rajamangala Stadium was so quiet that I could clearly hear the sound of water from the sprinkler of Mr. Niran, the 54-year-old groundskeeper. He still watered the grass every morning even though there were no matches, no spectators. I asked him why he was doing something so futile. He looked at me and smiled: 'The grass needs to live, even when no one is watching. When the spectators return, they deserve to see a lush green field.' That two-hour conversation saved me from months of exhaustion from being doubted in the male-dominated sports media industry. And it also taught me something I carried throughout my career: sometimes, the meaning of a match is not found in the winner, but in what remains after the final whistle blows.

In Vietnam, volleyball is going through a powerful transformation. The national championship, the Hung Vuong Cup volleyball tournament, the VTV Cup international women's volleyball tournament, and especially the rise of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team in Asian and world arenas — all are attracting unprecedented attention. However, most media content still revolves around the winner: which team won the championship, which athlete scored the most points, which coach is the most talented. The defeated — reserve athletes who sit out the entire season, teams relegated in agony, individuals who made decisive mistakes — are often left behind, mentioned only as a footnote in the results bulletin.

I came to volleyball not from the position of a pure tactical expert. I came from a different background: forty-three years of observing the sports industry, from my days as an International Communication student in Beijing, to becoming a columnist in Thailand. I learned that each sport has its own grammar. Football has a slow rhythm, accumulating, then exploding. Volleyball is different. Volleyball is the sport of moments. Each rally lasts only a few seconds, but in those seconds, hundreds of decisions are made: the foot position of the setter, the movement direction of the middle blocker, the arm angle of the outside hitter, and even the breathing rhythm of the defender on the other side of the net.

What troubles me most when following Vietnamese volleyball in recent years is the excessive focus on the final result. The media reports on 3-0 victories, on a 100km/h spike by some athlete, on the average score per set. But they rarely take the time to analyze why a team lost. Not lost because the opponent was stronger, but lost because of a wrongly constructed defensive system, because of an ineffective serving tactic, because of an overdependence on one individual.

In my experience following matches, I have realized that volleyball is the sport where defeat has the clearest structure. Unlike football, where a weak team can luckily score from a counterattack, volleyball is a sport of probability. Each rally is a chain of decisions repeated hundreds of times in a match. This means that defeat in volleyball often has systemic causes, not random ones. And precisely because of this, analyzing defeat in volleyball provides more information than analyzing victory.

Let me take a specific example. In a typical match of the Vietnamese national championship, if a team loses 0-3 with set scores of 18-25, 20-25, 19-25, the cause is usually not that the team has fewer stars. The cause is often in serving efficiency. In modern volleyball, serving is not just the action that starts the rally. Serving is the first tactical weapon. A team that serves effectively will break the opponent's reception system, force them to set in a disadvantaged situation, and thereby reduce the opponent's attacking efficiency. A team that serves poorly will give the opponent control of the match from the very first seconds.

This leads me to an important point that I rarely see analyzed in Vietnam: the ace-to-service-error ratio is an index that reflects the tactical nature of a volleyball team, not just individual skill. A team with a low ace rate but also a low service error rate may be playing it safe, relying on defense and counterattack. A team with a high ace rate but a high service error rate is accepting risk to gain advantage. Both are tactical choices, but they lead to two completely different playing systems.

When following the matches of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team in Asian tournaments, I noticed an interesting pattern. The Vietnamese team often has good serving efficiency in the first set, but this efficiency decreases in the second and third sets. This does not only reflect a physical issue — although physical fitness is a factor — but also reflects psychological and tactical issues. When the team is leading, they tend to serve more safely, reducing risk, and this inadvertently gives the initiative to the opponent. When the team is trailing, they tend to serve more riskily, increasing the error rate, and this worsens the gap.

This is a form of 'psychological trap' in volleyball. And it can only be detected if we analyze defeat seriously, not just look at the final score.

In modern volleyball, there is a concept that experts often call the 'reception system'. This system includes three main elements: the position of the receiver, the quality of the first pass, and the speed of attack deployment. A good reception system will allow the setter to have more attacking options: they can set for the middle blocker at position 3, set for the outside hitter at position 2 or 4, set behind the back for the middle blocker at position 6. A poor reception system will limit the setter's options, often leaving only one or two options, and this makes it easy for the opponent to predict and block.

In Vietnam, many volleyball teams still build their reception system according to the traditional model: focusing on two main receivers, usually the outside hitter and the libero. This model has the advantage of being simple, easy to coach, but has the major disadvantage of being easily exploited. When the opponent serves to the position of the weaker receiver, the system collapses. When the opponent serves with high speed and spin, the receiver will struggle to control the first pass, and the entire attacking system will be affected.

Top Asian volleyball teams like Japan, South Korea, and China have switched to a three-person reception model, in which the libero, outside hitter, and middle blocker all participate in the reception system. This allows them to maintain the quality of the first pass even when the opponent serves to any position on the court. This is a system change, not just a personnel change. And it requires time, coaching, and most importantly, a change in coaching philosophy.

I spent many months reviewing footage of matches of the Vietnamese national team and domestic teams. I noted every rally, every position, every decision. And I realized something that few people mention: the biggest problem of Vietnamese volleyball is not individual skill. Vietnamese athletes have good skills. They can spike hard, block high, and defend flexibly. The problem is in the system. The problem is in how individuals are connected to each other in a tactical whole.

A specific example: in a match between the Vietnamese national team and a strong Thai team, I counted that Vietnam's successful set rate to position 3 (middle blocker) was only about 15 percent. This figure for Thailand was about 30 percent. This means that Thailand's blocking line only needs to focus on the two wing positions, because they know that Vietnam rarely attacks from the middle. This is a clear tactical disadvantage, and it cannot be solved just by changing individuals. It requires a change in coaching and in the philosophy of building the team.

But this is the point where I want to go against the majority. While many people believe that Vietnamese volleyball needs to 'import' coaching models from abroad, I believe the problem is not in the model. The problem is that we have not learned to listen to ourselves. We have not built a system to evaluate defeat scientifically. We do not have the habit of analyzing why a rally failed, why a tactic was ineffective, why an athlete did not fulfill their potential.

I once sat in a press conference in Hanoi after a loss by the Vietnamese women's national team. The coach spoke about fighting spirit, about the players' efforts, about the opponent being stronger. But no one asked about the successful set rate, about blocking efficiency, about the number of successful defenses. No one asked about the numbers that could help us understand the loss better. This is a gap in Vietnamese sports media culture.

In a recent reporting trip, I had the opportunity to talk with a former Vietnamese women's volleyball athlete who retired after fifteen years of competition. She told me about the final years of her career, when she was no longer playing regularly. She said: 'No one asked me how I felt sitting on the bench. No one asked me what I learned from watching my teammates compete. They only asked when I scored, when I shone. When I failed, I was alone.'

Her story reminded me of the 'defeated warriors' I have written about throughout my career. People who never appear on the front page but are an important part of every team. In volleyball, a team has fourteen people, but only seven play in each set. The other seven sit on the bench, waiting for an opportunity. They train every day, they prepare for every match, but they are rarely mentioned in the news.

Vietnamese sports culture needs to learn to honor even the defeated. Not by romanticizing defeat, but by acknowledging that every athlete has a story, every team has a journey, and every loss has a lesson. This is not weakness. This is maturity.

In the context of the current transfer window, when teams are actively seeking and signing new athletes, I notice a concerning trend. Teams often focus on buying established stars, those who can score immediately. They rarely spend time developing young athletes, those with potential but who need time to mature. This is a short-term strategy, and it can lead to long-term consequences.

The echoes from the empty court still resonate in my mind. I hear the sound of the ball bouncing on the wooden floor, the sound of rubber shoes rubbing against the court surface, the breathing of the athletes, and the silence after each failed rally. Those sounds do not appear in highlight reels. But they are a part of volleyball, a part of sports, and a part of life.

When we learn to listen to those echoes, we will understand ourselves better. We will understand that victory is not the final destination, but a moment in a long journey. And that journey includes defeats, losses, and lessons that cannot be measured in points.

There is one thing I have always believed after forty-three years of observing the sports industry: what we see on the court is only the tip of the iceberg. The submerged part — the stories of the defeated, the echoes of empty courts, the silences after each failed rally — is the most important part. And if we take the time to explore that submerged part, we will not only understand volleyball better. We will understand ourselves better.

On a May morning in Bangkok, a groundskeeper taught me that even when no one is watching, the work still needs to be done well. Because one day, the spectators will return. And when they return, they deserve to see a lush green field — and a volleyball community that has learned to value even the defeated.

Perhaps what Vietnamese volleyball needs most right now is not another star, or another foreign coach. But a little more patience to look into the silences. A little more courage to face defeat. And a little more humanity to listen to the echoes from the empty court.

Because there, in those silences, we will find the seeds of healing.