Ngoc Thuan - the scoring machine of the Vietnamese men's volleyball team

Ngoc Thuan (left) plays a very important role in the Vietnamese men's volleyball team - Photo: AVC

Over the past few months, the Vietnamese men’s volleyball team has been on an unusual up and down journey in two tournaments, the AVC Nations Cup (Asia) and the SEA V.League (Southeast Asia). But there is only one person who has not changed, and that is the main striker Nguyen Ngoc Thuan.

Lonely hitter

All the statistics show one thing, Ngoc Thuan is the most important scorer of the Vietnam team. At the AVC Nations Cup, he and Nguyen Van Quoc Duy were the two main "guns", taking turns to shoot at the opponent. Initially, Quoc Duy was the one who was superior.

But the further he went, the more out of breath the Tra Vinh native lost. From then on, the scoring was handed over to Ngoc Thuan. He left the tournament with 93 points, ranking second among the top scorers, although the Vietnamese team only finished 8th overall.

Coming to SEA V.League, Quoc Duy has significantly declined compared to AVC Nations even though the two tournaments are less than 2 months apart. Therefore, only Ngoc Thuan is left to lead the attack.

In all 3 matches of the Vietnam team so far, Ngoc Thuan has always been the player with the most points. On the opening day, the whole team had a weak match when they lost to the Philippines. Ngoc Thuan, despite playing below his best, still managed to score 13 points.

Against Cambodia, the Border Guard's spiker scored 22 points. And in the surprising victory against Thailand on the evening of July 11, Ngoc Thuan shone with 23 points.

In the match against Thailand, Quan Trong Nghia and Pham Quoc Du shone, but such appearances were rare. The rest, almost only Ngoc Thuan, though alone, still tried to score points in the context of his teammates not being able to "share the fire" with him often.

Multi-attack

Scoring in matches has become a habit for Ngoc Thuan. He does this thanks to his diverse attacking ability and quick, cunning handling of situations.

Standing at 1.93m tall, despite his slim build, this main attacker possesses a very powerful smashing power. Even strong teams like Qatar, Indonesia or Thailand have been victims of Ngoc Thuan's shots.

Many times when his teammates passed the ball in a difficult and off-track manner, he was still able to take advantage of his long arm span to come up with an attacking plan. But hitting the ball hard is not his only way to score points. Ngoc Thuan also showed his ability to think and judge situations very quickly to surprise his opponents.

Against Cambodia, he had a very clever two-handed push when he discovered a gap in the towering block in front of him. He put the ball in there and it landed in an unguarded position, bringing the score to the Vietnamese team.

Although not strong at first, Ngoc Thuan still had some surprising moves - Photo: AVC

Then when facing Thailand, Ngoc Thuan also had a situation where he jumped very high to finish gently but dangerously, sending the ball to the floor even though in front of him was a middle blocker named Kissada who was over 2m tall.

In addition to attacking at the net, he is also very strong in shots behind the 3-meter line and also in attacking serves to score points directly. Blocking is not Ngoc Thuan's strong point, but occasionally he still gets a few points from these situations.

The remaining problem for the 1999-born striker is the first pass. Up to now, he has not really improved, so there are still many mistakes in the first pass. But when needed, Ngoc Thuan is still ready to take the first pass after a strong serve from the opponent, then only takes a few seconds to jump up and hit the ball into the floor. In the current lineup of the Vietnamese men's volleyball team, he is almost the only one who can do that.

Vietnamese men's volleyball has always produced main attackers with impressive smashing power. In the past, there were Nguyen Huu Ha, Ngo Van Kieu and most recently Tu Thanh Thuan. With this progress, Ngoc Thuan may one day be ranked by fans as one of the best main attackers in the history of Vietnamese volleyball.

Tuoitre.vn

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ngoc-thuan-co-may-ghi-diem-cua-tuyen-bong-chuyen-nam-viet-nam-2025071200510586.htm