was in danger of losing the tournament.
The Korean women’s volleyball team (FIVB ranking 34th), led by coach Cesar Hernandez Gonzalez, played a match against the Dominican Republic (11th place) in the 3rd week of the 2023 International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Volleyball Nations League (VNL) held at Chilbo Gymnasium in Seosuwon on the 29th. It collapsed with a score of 0-3 (18-25, 18-25, 16-25). It is still the unbeaten team among the men’s and women’s teams participating in this tournament.메이저놀이터
With this, Korea fell into a swamp of 10 consecutive losses in this tournament. In addition, if you add the previous defeats and the last 3 consecutive losses in the 2021 competition, it is 25 consecutive losses in VNL alone. Cesar has not won in the VNL since he took over. The victory against Croatia in last year’s world championship was the only victory. It is 1 win and 26 losses since his appointment.
Players who had supported the national team, such as Kim Yeon-kyung, Kim Su-ji (Lee Sang-heungkuk Life Insurance), and Yang Hyo-jin (Hyundai E&C), retired and Cesar took over as head coach, creating a new game. Everyone expected that it would be a time of adversity to some extent, but no one expected it to be to this extent.
Before coming to Korea, he showed a disastrous performance with 8 consecutive losses in 8 matches and 1 set-24 losses. If he hadn’t brought a set against Germany in the last match of the second week, he would have boarded the plane to Korea without even bringing a single set.
They lost 0-3 to Croatia, Cesarho’s first match, and also lost 1-3 to Bulgaria, their first match after coming to Korea. In this match, he lost without a big surprise and bowed his head.
Korean fans who visited Seosuwon Chilbo Gymnasium cheered by chanting the names of the players, but the players failed to reciprocate with a victory. Rather, I had to bow my head, blocked by the Dominican Republic’s strong attack and huge blocking wall.
Amid continued defeat, Korea’s world ranking gradually fell. As of the 29th, it was 34th, and it was in the top 10 before the appointment of Cesar, but it doesn’t seem easy to get inside now. To make matters worse, there is a high possibility that the ranking will drop further with the defeat on this day. After being pushed back by Peru and Bosnia, it is in danger of being pushed back by Romania and Austria.
Korea, which suffered the humiliation of being the first team in VNL history to record all losses in the last tournament, now has to worry about the crisis of losing two consecutive tournaments.
The remaining opponents are China, 5th in the FIVB rankings (2:00 p.m. on July 1), and Poland (2:00 p.m., July 2), 8th. Both teams are cruising in this contest. Poland is fighting for first place with the United States and is in second place (23 points, 8 wins, 2 losses). China is also ranked 6th (18 points, 6 wins, 3 losses) and is not behind the world’s strong players.
Even before the start of the tournament, everyone expected it to be different this time around. However, the feared situation is about to happen.