Japan - SV.League Women 2024-2025


    V.LEAGUE REBORN


    Regular Season: October 12, 2024 (Sat) - April 6, 2025 (Sun)

    • Each team will play 44 games. 22 will be home games (some of them fake)
    • Top eight teams in the regular season will advance to the championship
    • Final rankings for teams ranked 9th to 14th will be determined by the results of the regular season


    Championship: 3rd week of April 2025 - Sunday, May 4, 2025

    • Teams ranked 1st through 8th in the regular season will play in the quarter finals based on their ranking at the end of the regular season
    • There will be no ranking match for the losers of the quarterfinals and semifinals
    • Final rankings of clubs in 3rd to 8th place will be determined based on their final regular season rankings
    • All games, except for the final, will be home games of the higher ranked clubs in the regular season

    Championship (Quarterfinal, Semifinal, Final):

    • Each game will be played on a two-game, first-win basis, and if there is one win and one loss, a third game will be played to determine the winner


    14 Teams


    Team Name
    		 Home Town
    		 Home Arena

    Aranmare Yamagata • アランマーレ 山形

    Tendo City

    Yamagata Sports Park Gymnasium

    Astemo Rivale Ibaraki • Astemo リヴァーレ 茨城

    Hitachinaka City

    Hitachinaka Sports Park

    Denso Airybees • デンソーエアリービーズ (郡山市 福島)

    Koriyama City

    Horaiya Koriyama Gymnasium

    Gunma Green Wings • 群馬 グリーンウイングス

    Maebashi City

    Yamato Citizen Gymnasium Maebashi

    Kurobe Aqua Fairies Toyama • Kurobe アクアフェアリーズ富山

    Kurobe City

    Kurobe General Sports Center

    NEC Red Rockets Kawasaki • NECレッドロケッツ 川崎

    Kawasaki City

    Todoroki Arena

    Okayama Seagulls • 岡山 シーガルズ

    Okayama City

    Zip Arena Okayama

    Osaka Marvelous • 大阪 マーヴェラス

    Osaka city

    Asue Arena Osaka

    PFU BlueCats Ishikawa Kahoku • PFUブルーキャッツ石川かほく

    Kahoku City

    Kahoku Arena

    Queenseis Kariya • クインシーズ 刈谷

    Kariya City

    Wing Arena Kariya

    Saga Hisamitsu Springs • 佐賀 久光スプリングス

    Tosu City

    SAGA Arena

    Saitama Ageo Medics • 埼玉 上尾メディックス

    Ageo City

    Saitama Prefectural Budokan

    Toray Arrows Shiga • 東レアローズ 滋賀

    Otsu City

    Shiga Daihatsu Arena

    Victorina Himeji • ヴィクトリーナ 姫路

    Himeji City

    Victorina Wink Gymnasium


    As for the new import rules I'll leave it for someone else to answer definitively, or post a source, but I think for the first year it's 2+1


    Saitama already has Lozo and Malkovich Markovič so


    Not sure if there are rules about how many can be on court at the same time but I think there are no restrictions


    I believe the +1 is still ASEAN only. No Chinese or Korean


    I read somewhere about plans to make some ASEAN countries "associate" somethings so their players won't count as foreigners

    Quote from sitenoise

    Final rankings of clubs in 3rd to 8th place will be determined based on their final regular season rankings

    I sort of get it that the "Championship" Round is meaningless unless you win it. But what happens if the winner of the Regular Season gets knocked out in the QF and the team that finished 8th loses a SF? Presumably, the RR winner would place 3rd and the SF loser would place 8th (below 4 teams that lost a QF)

    That's mildly odd

    As part of the SVLeague license rules, teams are required to have U15 teams. There will be a SVLeague U15 Championship with qualifying tournaments in August 31 and September 1, and Finals in October 5-6. I don't think we'll be able to watch them, but just interesting to see. Most of the teams have been posting about their U15 teams in their social media, with some of their club players helping with the training. :lol::box:


    https://www.vleague.jp/topics/news_detail/23108

    There is a section on Foreign Players rules on this SV.League Implementation Guidelines, but written in Japanese:

    https://vleague.or.jp/files/pdf/svl/55_match_guidelines.pdf


    The Section 14 of the document refers to the Foreign Players. Assuming the online translation is correct (Please check for those who can read Japanese)...


    The number of Foreign Players allowed to compete in the court at the same time is 3, which is composed of:

    • Foreign players excluding Asian Quota Athletes: 2 or less
    • Asian special quota players: 1 or less

    Asian special countries, per 53_regulations_of_players_20240717.pdf (vleague.or.jp)
    1. Indonesia

    2. Thailand

    3. South Korea

    4. Chinese Taipei

    5. Philippines

    6. Vietnam


    They are calling it on the court rule. Yes 3 foreign players at most on the court at one time.

    Also if a foreign player is deemed to have Japanese nationality through the following

    1. Middle School graduation

    2. High School graduation

    3. Technical College graduation

    4. College graduation

    They will not count as one of the 3 foreign players on the court

    Also if a player is naturalized and are at least 16 years old, they will not count as a foreign player

    So someone could hire Khandsuren Gantogtokh and she wouldn't count as a foreigner :box:


    It's possible to put 6 players on court none of whom would need be Japanese :cheesy:

    Quote from brahmin

    Asian special countries, per 53_regulations_of_players_20240717.pdf (vleague.or.jp)

    When I go to that document it ends with number 52 :rolll: I get it that the 53 is just part of the title but the irony :!:

    I was looking at Saga's nice little match schedule

    https://saga-springs.co.jp/new…s/2024-25_SV_schedule.png


    and noticed Denso has removed "Denso" from their logo. I looked to see if "Ibaraki" had been added to the team from Ibaraki and noticed Saga appears to play them only 2 times

    So I tried to do some math which I suck at: 14 teams ... Play each team 4 times ... 13 X 4 = 52 matches

    But teams are only playing 44 matches so I tried to count up the logos on a couple schedules


    Saga plays these teams only twice:

    • Kariya, Ibaraki, Gunma, Shiga

    Saitama plays these teams only twice:

    • Kurobe, PFU, Okayama, Himeji

    Shiga plays these teams only twice:

    • NEC, Denso, Kurobe, Saga


    Seems curious for a tournament based on WINS. The team that plays Yamagata only twice** got ripped off :) I wonder how they came up with who plays who only twice


    **[update] These teams play Yamagata only twice

    • PFU, Osaka, Kariya, Kurobe

    I'm having a hard time imagining this transition to go as smoothly as possible. Strategies will be a piping hot mess except for maybe JT's.


    1. it goes against every team's vow to develop their younger players especially shitastic springs and their roster of utter disappointment


    What does that mean for future NT hopefuls and future Saori wannabes if their court time will be limited in favor of foreign players and considered "non-foreign" foreign players who don't plan or are not qualified for NT.

    Quote from Phoenix

    I'm having a hard time imagining this transition to go as smoothly as possible. Strategies will be a piping hot mess except for maybe JT's.


    1. it goes against every team's vow to develop their younger players especially shitastic springs and their roster of utter disappointment


    What does that mean for future NT hopefuls and future Saori wannabes if their court time will be limited in favor of foreign players and considered "non-foreign" foreign players who don't plan or are not qualified for NT.

    Beyond that head scratcher I wonder how this is supposed to grow enthusiasm among local fans. I honestly don't know what percentage of them also follow TUR and ITL leagues and think "gosh, I wish a bunch of those players would come play in Japan so we'd have BETTER volleyball"

    I think they should have limited this SV.League to EIGHT teams, and promoted the heck out of the "community" league as well, but that would never happen

    Enthusiasm comes from winning, or at least some sort of hope that your team can win. The way this is set up now the gap between the haves and have-nots is wider and deeper

    Quote from volleyb

    Victorina Himeji signs Brazilian OH Ana Luiza Rudiger and Serbian MB Minja Osmajic for this season. Chatchuon Moksri is also still in the roster so they are going 2+1


    https://www.victorina-vc.jp/information/20240730-02/

    And Shiori Aratani goes on loan to Breath Hamamatsu. Shiori was one of the first ones to jump ship (NEC) to Himeji. Then she got injured and hasn't really played much since. I'm surprised she's still hanging around. She's 26