Japan - V.League V1 (Division 1, Women) 2019-2020

    Quote from werka

    Rooting for my JT gurlz and for another MVP for my queen.

    Isn't Annie already playing somewhere else?

    Quote from forzalube

    What japanese players are doing between end of the league and Empress Cup? Why they didn't make the league longer?


    When is Kurowashiki Cup?

    May 1–6 - 2020 69th Kurowashiki Black Eagle Tournament


    They cut the league short this year for Olympic reasons. Presumably the NT is training. Everybody else just hanging about, I guess.

    Quote from forzalube

    What about foreign players? Will they stay there to play that 2 cups?

    Depends on the contract and the player. Simone Lee has already left (probably loaned) for a team in Germany. It still does not mean that may play for them next season.


    The reason for the short season is that federation in Japan wants to finish with a medal in the Olympics that they are hosting. A long training camp combined with VNL enables Nakata to hopefully choose her best squad. It is very critical for the Federation to do well from an economic basis for the next for years that they finish with a medal.

    If this team loses the Challenge Match and gets demoted to v2 it will be a sad bad day for V.League.



    Try to imagine a trio of Okayama players :) on the cover of a newspaper with a distribution of 15,000,000 <3

    JT Marvelous just landed a couple players with rep.


    Yukiko Wada OH

    Nana Sakakibara MB


    Both are from reputable High Schools, and are regulars in the U-World recently. Yukiko Wada was Captain of the U-18 squad (but didn't play much) and MVP at Cornacchia World Cup, where Sakakibara got best MB award.


    Not a fan of Sakakibara or her H.S., but Wada's been impressive. I felt bad for her when my Kyoei Gakuen girls knocked her team out of the most recent HS Championships. Haha :) not really :box:

    Keti resigned from Saitama, won't be there for Upcoming Cups

    The Himeji v Gumma Bank matches are scheduled to be live on VTV this weekend. This is so tense. Gumma Bank is a good team but Himeji is so much better for the League and their setter was my favorite player of the year.


    I'm still mad Brilliant Aries couldn't win just one of their last two matches. Both were Tie-Breakers. They could have gone on to relegate PFU, which would be sad but Ami & Emi belong in V1 :cursing:

    Himeji 3–0 Gumma Bank [25–17, 25–16, 25–19]


    That's about as good as it gets :) It would take a monumental failure tomorrow for Himeji to get relegated.

    Himeji played a couple new college recruits instead of Nagano and Kanasugi. That worried me (didn't work out for Brilliant Aries when they did it in an important match), but the Himeji kids did okay.


    I was disappointed in how poorly Gumma Bank played. The match started out as side-out volleyball until the second TTO of the first set, and I was worried about Himeji, but then they walked away with it -- not because they have a big foreigner and Gumma doesn't. That would have been cheap and ugly, but Ivna was 4/29 and spent half the time on the bench.

    Himeji 31–29 Gumma Bank :super:


    A little tense down the stretch but I get to watch my favorite player for another year <3


    Doesn't matter if Gumma Bank wins the match, Himeji has more set wins at this point

    In a post-match interview Coach Takeshita answers a question I had all year. What happened to Miki Sakurai? Answer: She was on the injured list. She appeared to be the setter who was going to take over after Yuki Kawai retired, and then she disappeared. I never knew if it was because Nao Horigome showed up and stole her job or not.


    Coach Takeshita says Sakurai is recovered and ready to go but she's going to have to prove she wants to survive. Coach also said Horigome is going to have to prove herself if she wants to keep the position. It's google-translated but I didn't feel a lot of love for Horigome from the Coach. That's too bad because Horigome was Himeji's only consistently enjoyable player for me. I see her as a Takeshita prototype/protégé. The coach was asked to address that and didn't say much more than they are both short. Rats :(

    Empress Cup Final Round is cancelled :(


    https://tk2019.jva.or.jp/topics/20200302-1


    That's 10,000,000 yen some team is not going to get. Okayama could've really used it

    Hisae Watanabe and Sakura Doi announced their retirement from Hitachi Rivale. Wow. Surprised, but I'm going to have to get used to this. I have abandonment issues ;(


    Nana Sakamoto announced her retirement from Denso Airybees. She played in Germany 2018-19 season and Denso moved on without her :( She barely played this season.