Italians defeat 'one-man ball' tactic, a lesson for Vietnamese volleyball

What superstar Gabi (Brazil) had to experience against Italy in the semi-finals of the 2025 Women's Volleyball World Championship was repeated once again with Vargas (Türkiye) in the final match against Italy on the night of September 7. As a result, Italy beat Türkiye 3-2 to become the world champion.

Vargas (number 4) cannot carry the entire Turkish team alone - Photo: FIVB

Vargas is not good enough

Playing in the opposite position, Vargas is obviously the name that the Italian defense must be most wary of in the final of the Women's Volleyball World Championship.

And indeed, the Cuban-born star played up to the expectations of his fans. More precisely, Vargas turned the final into a "one-man show".

Vargas scored 33 points in the match, a staggering number for a World Championship final. This number of points is almost equal to the combined score of the two Italian setters Egonu (22) and Antropova (14).

The fourth game was the moment when Vargas showed her awesomeness when she scored 10 points, accounting for 40% of the team's total. That was also the moment when fans clearly felt the "one-man game" that Türkiye created.

Vargas played very well - Photo: FIVB

In addition to the 8 attack points, Vargas also scored 2 points from her serve in this game. Every time the 1m93 tall Cuban girl hugged the ball, spun it in her hands, and jumped, the whole Italian team was nervous.

Vargas is not only good, not only strong, but also "weird". And she played well throughout the tournament, scoring 151 points in 7 matches, the most in this year's world championship.

But the problem is, at the decisive moment, Vargas... failed. If in the first 4 games, Vargas alone made the Italian team wary, then in game 5, the Cuban girl was Türkiye's weak point.

Or to be more precise, the Italian blockers, as well as their head coach, have found a way to predict the best player on the opposing team.

Vargas had more than 10 chances to hit the ball but only scored 2 points in this game. She was even rated -9.1% efficiency, lower than teammates like Gunes or Karakurt, and obviously far behind the Italian team's counter-setters and main attackers.

5/15 points in the 5th set of the Italian team came from blocks, and most of them were concentrated in Vargas' position. The barrier of Sylla, Antropova, and Fahr of the Italian team acted like a wall blocking all of Vargas' efforts.

Türkiye's stubbornness in giving the ball to Vargas became their big problem. In fact, the Turks had no other choice because they had already gambled with Vargas.

And that was also the moment fans realized how convincingly and deservedly Italy won.

Lessons for Vietnamese volleyball

At the end of the tournament, the new champions - Italy team contributed 3 out of 7 names in the Best Team. But strangely, none of those 3 people were in the attacking group (main attacker or opposite passer).

They were libero De Gennaro, middle blocker Danesi and setter Orro. Orro also won the Best Athlete award.

Egonu, Italy's number 1 opposite player, did not play very well in the tournament. But no problem, coach Velasco is always very flexible in making substitutions.

Egonu was substituted early on numerous occasions at the 2025 World Championships. Her replacement, Antropova, wasn't always great, but that didn't matter, as Italy didn't use the "overdrive" tactic the way Türkiye did with Vargas.

A day earlier, Italy had also overcome Brazil in a similarly dramatic match, with superstar Gabi playing just as well as Vargas in that semi-final.

But failure is still failure. The truth is that Brazil's play of passing the ball to Gabi lost its effectiveness at the most crucial moment.

Every time Bich Tuyen is on the national team, Vietnam also deploys a one-man ball-playing style - Photo: FIVB

These evenly matched matches often go to game 5. And by then, Gabi and Vargas are both exhausted from playing without a break throughout the match.

On the opposite side, Italy always has countermeasures, strategies, and patience to counter the one-man pressing style of play.

When watching Türkiye and Brazil compete against Italy, Vietnamese fans more or less associate with Bich Tuyen, who scored nearly half of the points to help the home team win the historic match against Thailand at SEA V.League 2025.

The fun has passed, and Vietnamese volleyball should also learn the lesson of one-man pressing.

Of course, Vietnam is not Türkiye, and Thailand is not Italy. But at every level, learning is always going on.

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HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-y-danh-bai-chien-thuat-don-bong-1-nguoi-bai-hoc-cho-bong-chuyen-viet-nam-20250907214502167.htm