I was finally persuaded to invest in a Volleyball World account to watch the VNL. I am kicking myself for not having done so earlier. I logged in to the various volleyball groups in the virtual world after the match against Türkiye to see what others had to say. It was, I must say, amusing and disconcerting at the same time.
So here is some history and some realities for the sake of
context.
Volleyball Nations League was inaugurated in 2018. It is a
revamping of the World League and World Grand Prix, both of which are
tournaments put on by the FIVB for the top teams in the world. The VNL replaced
the World Grand Prix. These tournaments take place every year except for Olympic
years. They charge big bucks to each nation who want to participate but also payoff
in big bucks for those finishing atop the league.
One thing to remember is that the Olympic sports places the
premium on the Olympics, all the other tournaments are ways to build up to the
Olympic competition. Cycle time is four years, just as the Soccer World Cup, International
basketball, and any other sport whose biggest competition is the Olympics.
Unlike the popular sports that we follow in the US, where there is a payoff and
champion every year. The VNL is NOT the be all and end all for international
volleyball. None of these countries would play to lose, it costs too much. But the
impetus is much different.
Looking from the athletes’ point of view, they are playing
overseas in a single year cycle so that they can distinguish themselves for the
national team on the four-year cycle. Playing professionally overseas is very
trying: physically and emotionally. There
are injuries, home sickness, language, and culture issues etc. Why do it? Some
thrive on the adventure of the experience while others do it because they know
this is the only way they can get experience in the international game while playing against
the best competition, all done to enhance their chances at making the team
every quad. The schedule though, works
against them. The players need to rush home after their pro season is over to
practice in the national team gym for a very short time, then it is off to four
weeks of playing and traveling. This year Hentz and Hancock were the only two
that went on all four legs of the VNL. Others were on and off the rosters as
the weeks rolled by.
The reason for that musical roster is because they have to
give the veteran players time off to heal and to rest from their professional seasons.
But there is also a broader and more long term focused purpose. The national
team roster is ever evolving, even though most fans get fixated on the roster
each week of the VNL as their focus. Coaches are dealing with a fluid roster.
Karch said that he considers all 24 on the training roster members of the
national team after the USA won the gold. He is not just being kind; it is a
reality. The selection of the final Olympic roster is an arduous and emotional
experience for everyone involved. More on that later.
All the countries who are contenders for the Olympic title
treat the VNL in various contexts: as a competition, as a period of assessment,
and most importantly, as a laboratory to experiment with everything — tactics,
strategy, players, player interaction, team makeup, individual and team ability
to withstand game pressure and being able to make good decisions under game
pressure. They don’t pretend that winning the VNL is the ultimate prize for the
national team. Winning is important, but it is not the most important. The most
important thing is to learn about the disparate parts: players, coaches, and staff;
the humans involved and figuring out ways to melding them into a team.
The coaching staffs needs to know about how much the
veterans have left in their batteries, whether they are performing up to the
highest of international standards, their ability to make the best decisions
under pressure, and whether they are still as motivated as they were from the
last quad. They also need to know where the young players are at: how the
pipeline of players are developing, whether they are playing overseas or are in
college. The international game is very different and much more demanding,
physically, emotionally, and mentally than the collegiate game. Competing
against wily veterans from other countries, even the non-competitive countries
in the international scene, is not the same as competing with other 18 to 22-year-olds.
International coaches leverage the changing rosters for the VNL to work groups
of young players in and out of their roster decision every two weeks to not
only expose the young players to the level of play but to also observe how well
the young players mesh with the veterans and how they are able to “solve
problems” as Karch noted in the comments between sets against Türkiye. Digging into
the granularities, coaches will want to know which players play better
together, which players seem to not do well when on the court with one another.
The coaches need to be the alchemists of team chemistry. Coaches also need to let the players play
themselves into and out of trouble. I see many comments about the coaches being
too slow with the subs. I believe that this is deliberate, they want to see whether
the veterans have lost their edge and whether the young players have learned to
develop that edge. This is the time for the coaching staffs to be patient and
experimental, not during the Olympics.
There are many countries who treat the World Grand Prix and
now the VNL in a very controlled manner, many will only send the next level of
players, to get them seasoning. They will also play a plain vanilla game, not
showing any of their new strategies, preferring to save them for the Olympics. Partly
to play a cat and mouse game, partly to lull the opposing team’s scout into
thinking that this is all there is. I am not sure how much of that is going on
right now, but that was the way it was.
The decisions for the USA women’s team is made particularly difficult
because the USA has never won a gold medal in the Olympics until the last quad.
The reason for that is convoluted and complex. I wrote about it in one of my
other blogs immediately after the gold medal match. (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/08/an-appreciation-of-karch-kiraly.html)
I have been a fan since the 1980 team, and quad after quad, I was disappointed.
The USA team is the illustration of the adage: “Men battle to bond, and women
bond to battle.” The difference with the
gold medal winning team and Karch as head coach is that he pays attention to
the relationships, building trust, convincing the players to work on themselves,
their relationships with one another, and their own altruistic motivations when
playing with the national team. In order to have a roster of 14 players who can
step in when needed, they must be unselfish about their roles. The coaches need
to put the players through the gauntlet so that they have knowledge of their
players when it comes time to actually pick the members of the squad, and work
with them to help resolve issues. As alluded to before, the selection is for the
last pre-Olympic roster and not just the final Olympics roster. There must also be trust between those that
made the final Olympic roster and those that did not, the coaching staff need
to make sure that everyone on the pre-Olympic roster is 100% on board with the Olympic
team, no petty jealousies, no selfish petulance, nothing that would detract from
the drive to the gold.
This is not something that all other national teams go
through, and some may say that this is just another case paralysis by analysis,
but we have one gold medal to show for this method and 40 years of frustrations
otherwise.
I wanted to put all that context out there for everyone’s consideration.
To call attention to the fact that what we are seeing in the final weekend of
VNL competition, or for the month of VNL competition is just a snapshot in time
of the very large national team roster as we know it, a year away from the
actual Olympics. There are many players with many different levels of experience,
physical shape, emotional welfare, and maturity levels. Each member of that
expanded roster will have individual and collective interactions and couplings
with one another, some tenable and some not. The coaching staff will have to
sort through all of that, the VNL is their testing ground, their sandbox to
play in so that they have all that information. Of course, the process is
imperfect, but when they, the coaching staff, make the decisions, they need to
have as much information based on different scenarios on the actions and
reactions of the team to reference, if that means being patient with players
when they are on court so be it, you don’t learn much about how they will play
if they are on the bench.
It is a marathon folks, not a sprint.
