The 5 AM Training Court and the Big Question for Vietnamese Women's Volleyball

There is a training court on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City at 5 AM, where a 17-year-old girl practices passing alone. She is Tran Thi My Linh, a young athlete of VTV Binh Dien Long An women's volleyball team. No coach supervising, no cameras, no spectators. Only the sound of the ball hitting the floor and the steady breathing of someone dreaming of one day playing in the V-League.

That moment, based on my experience watching matches over the past five years in Japan, is exactly what Vietnamese women's volleyball lacks most: the connection between individual ambition and a long-term training system with vision. This is not the story of one outstanding player, but the story of a women's volleyball foundation quietly being built amid media indifference.

Context worth revisiting

Vietnamese women's volleyball once had glorious periods. In 2026, the national team won a bronze medal at the SEA Games. From 2026 to 2026, clubs like VTV Binh Dien Long An and Ngan hang Cong Thuong dominated the domestic league. But that was an era when Vietnamese women's volleyball operated under the 'provincial team' model, where athletes were nurtured within the collective achievement sports system - and it is time to admit that model no longer fits modern professional sports.

Comparing with the Nadeshiko League where I work, the difference lies not in player talent but in the system. Nadeshiko has 12 professional clubs, each with its own academy running youth teams from U-12, U-15, and U-18. Young players undergo six years of structured training before debuting with the first team. Meanwhile, Vietnam has about 8 clubs in the women's V-League, but most lack a complete youth development system. Young athletes are typically discovered late (ages 15-16) and must figure things out on their own in an unprofessional environment.

Three strategic gaps that need to be named

Based on data I collected from the 2026-2026 women's V-League matches and field observations at training courts, there are three clear gaps I want to name.

First gap - the post-Thanh Thuy vacuum. Tran Thi Thanh Thuy currently plays in the Thai league and is the greatest player in Vietnamese women's volleyball history. But when she retires in the next 3-4 years, no one is ready to replace her. In the current U-23 national squad, no player stands 1m85 tall with the same diverse attacking ability as Thanh Thuy. This is an urgent puzzle the Vietnam Volleyball Federation has yet to answer clearly.

Second gap - lack of professional scouting systems. Vietnamese clubs discover young talent mainly through mass tournaments and student games, with no systematic scouting approach. Japan has the JOC Youth Academy with 47 centers nationwide, tracking roughly 50,000 young athletes each year. Vietnam may not need that scale, but it needs a minimum system so as not to miss talents like My Linh training alone at 5 AM.

Third gap - insufficient internal competition. The 2026-2026 women's V-League has only 8 participating teams, each playing about 14 matches per season. Too few. Young players do not get enough opportunities to compete at high intensity. A Nadeshiko U-18 player averages 30-40 matches per year through youth tournaments, while a Vietnamese player of the same age might play only 8-10 matches. At Nadeshiko I learned: losing on the court is also a way of winning in life - but only if you lose enough times.

Counter-intuitive view: commercial value is not the answer

I have heard many opinions that Vietnamese women's volleyball needs to 'commercialize better' - attract sponsors, push advertising, raise athlete salaries. This approach is wrong. In 17 years of observing women's sports across Asia, I discovered one rule: commerce is only a consequence of competitive quality, not the reverse.

The Nadeshiko League in 2026 also had empty stands and lacked sponsors. Only after Japan's women's national team won the 2026 World Cup did the entire system explode. The lesson here is clear: without a field, we drag the field into every spectator's living room - but the field must come first, then the spectators will come on their own.

Vietnam needs to invest in grassroots training systems before expecting commercialization. This is something major sponsors do not want to hear, but it is the only thing that creates sustainability. Women's football, women's volleyball do not need saviors - they only need people willing to sit down and listen to what is happening on empty training courts.

A thought to leave behind

I have no right to expect My Linh to become a star, or that Vietnamese women's volleyball will explode in the next five years. But I believe: the first questions I once feared are now the stories I tell to the young athletes - and if we are willing to sit down and listen to the girls training alone at 5 AM, perhaps we will find the answer to a bigger question: where does Vietnamese women's volleyball want to go on the world map?

That question is not reserved for the Federation or sponsors alone. It belongs to everyone who still remembers that women's sports once had brave women sitting in empty stands to cheer.