Before Araki there was Tomoko Yoshinara - the current JT's coach who played at Italy's Series A for 2 seasons in the 90s. After Araki, there Yuki Soji who played at ... Denmark and Spain too lol.
Posts by Nghiphong
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I still can't get over the fact that JPN lost after leading 2 sets to nil
. Yet, love how Yamada got 7 kill blocks in front of anyone but Carol. Unable to remember when was the last time a JPN MB dominated that much on the net 
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I also like Mayu’s new look, refreshing and more fierce. Yesterday’s game showed how important serve receive is in Japan’s game and Mayu played a huge part of the improvement. I can’t help but think is it still possible to switch the 2 liberos for someone else lol. Such a pain to see countless consecutive errors from them 😩.
brahmin could you please help specify Japan’s chance for quarterfinal or even semifinal
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Inoue and Mayu are on fire 😆
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given that they lose to china and brazil but win against argentina will they still qualify to the next phase?
Next phase = most defly, but will be hard to advance any further than that since they very likely need to fight with Netherlands, Belgium and Italy for a spot in the quarterfinal.
Watching the last 3 matches, it hurt to see how pathetic the serve receive was. Seki has been very much inconsistent with her sets, but the ball reception was in fact the root cause. The serve receive line up in this tournament is probably one of the worst, if not the worst since the WC 2015.
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I have honestly never seen any team clinging to their past achievements as much as Manabe does. Serbia moved on by switching Terzic to Santarelli meanwhile Manabe's team is clinging to past extras excuse me veterans and hope that they finally get their moment re: Airi, Uchiseto, Yamagishi, Miyashita... 2 of them already flopped, we still have Uchiseto and Airi to look forward to yey
He did call up almost everyone at the beginning of the training camp anyway. If he's not the type of person dwelling too much on the past then it means those staying at home did not live up to expectation during training.
But i agree he has the history of preferring someone he knew well rather than newbie. Remember he insisted on Yamaguchi as MB during 2015 & 2016 seasons although she was already over her prime and could not block at all.
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I think the Chinese coach read the match really well too. And his decision to change the setter from set 2 paid off. Great fight!
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Wow, Team C China upsets Team A- Thailand in 5 sets lol. The 2 OHs of this team are way more fierce than the 2 OHs (no. 8 and no. 10) China presented last VNL.
THAILAND
2 – 3 
CHINA
( 25:19
20:25 14:25 25:23 10:15 ) -
Who did she marry?
Taka Minowa - former assistant coach at Ageo and current assistant coach for the Japanese national team in the AVC Cup.
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Manabe took in Maiko Kano who is far more mediocre than her sister. I don't know what it is about these sisters I really don't know how they got so far. Maiko somehow made it past Nakada and Nakada being the ultimate powerhouse coach at the time took her into the golden era of Hisamitsu Springs thanks to having a sister from Yanagimoto's squad.
Megumi Kurihara on the other hand has always, A-L-W-A-Y-S been mediocre. Yanagimoto's insistence on having her in the team and making her core was an absolute disaster. He said she displayed qualities of European players when her only redeeming quality was her height which made her a candidate as one of the "Miracles" but she was slow as hell, unsuitable for Japanese style, did not help with blocking, had attitude issues etc. He relied on her heavily for firepower all because of her displaying "European qualities"
Maiko Kano was far better than her sister but injuries got her bad. She was fully healthy in only 1 single season - 2008-2009 in premier league wherein she saved SAGA big time. Kano then shined a tiny bit at Montreux and WGP 2009 and that's it. She could never go back to her best form after the serious injury in 2009 summer.
And i totally agree about Kurihara - she's mediocre, slow and rarely help with blocking lol. But we need to take into consideration about the quality of local WS in 2000s, 2 best WSs were both around 1.7m - Shin and Hyodo while the rest was either below average or injured all the times. And there's no one in between. It's even more pathetic when Shin, Kurihara and Oyama were away all at once, Yanagimoto even went as far as turning MBs to Ops then Libero to OH because he could not find anyone else.
Saori really started to develop after Beijing, domestically and it wasn't until the 2010 World Grand Prix did she really blossom in the
superstar for this team.
I think she played more aggressive after her closed friend passed away. Her best season is indeed 2009-2010.
he coached for years in Japan why didn't JVA invite him to train the NT instead during the early 2000?
He was rumored to be in talk with JVA after OG 2000 disaster but they could not finalize a mutual agreement. After the WCH 2002, he insisted on directing Red Wings only.
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I didn't know she has a sister that also played volleyball
Hahaa, you'll be even more in awe to know Miyuki's husband lol.
Before Manabe rounded up the London squad Yanagimoto already introduced "Japan's Miracles" who unfortunately flopped in 2008. The London squad was very much Yanagimoto's star squad, there was already a foundation. Manabe added Sakoda, Shinnabe and a nobody called Ebata.
Beijing squad's flop was mainly because of Shin who was kinda low and not well enough to perform as expected. Losing valuable starters like Kana Oyama and Ai Otomo while both Saori and Princess Meg remained unstable as ever also did not help at all. Yanagimoto was so lost before the Olympics that he decided to bring in the mediocre Miyuki Kano along with 4 MBs inlcuding 2 veterans Tajimi and Omura. It was a time when there's no decent OHs/OPs around while plenty of good MBs playing in the local league. The situation was so lame that Saori was switched between positions all the times depending on the availability of MBs/OPs/OHs.
However, the Yanagimoto's JPN miracles you referred to were actually chosen specifically by JVA for intensive grooming since late 2002 after 2 consecutive disappointment in OG 2000 and WCH 2002. The team included Megkana duo, Saori and Kano. Only Saori survived safe and sound while the rest were stuck in injuries. Yet, Kurihara and Kano's injuries and the comeback of Ai Yamamoto gave Manabe opportunities to try different tactics and new talents got added. If both Kurihara and Kano played, he'd defly stick with his 2009 Euro high ball style.
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Uchiseto lost me after 2 receive failure in the very last few points of set 4. Mayu played well today while Airi and Inoue look a bit out of place. Wish Hammy and Yamada would get more court time instead of Ogawa, at least the formers managed to have some block touches lol. Even Seki got a kill block today but not Ogawa haha.
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4T is on PFU's player page now, and it appears to be updated with 退団 or 任意引退 players removed and new players added. I think we got her
Per local news, she signed with PFU for 2 seasons (22-23 and 23-24) at ~200k USD/season. Although fans said she should go to Turkey instead of being an MB for another 2 years in Japan, I wish she will play for PFU (or any other JPN club after 2024) as long as she can. 200k is an awful lot of money. I mean, being a champion in the annual Vietnam league only gets you 3k USD, and that's for the whole team lol.
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Rumor has it that PFU just renewed their contract with 4T for this upcoming season.
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Amazing crowd tonight!
Hayashi is so good this game! Some angles of her shots are just beautiful to watch live.For once i thought JPN was playing on their home turf, the crowd is indeed amazing tonight!!
Do you think Koga can surpass Saori's peak times? Both achievement-wise and performance-wise.
By the way I always thought Nagaoka would be the new 'ace player' for Japan after Saori's retirement, I guess so many injuries took a toll on her
Achievement-wise, it's really hard for any JPN OH to reach Saori's level. At 24, she already got 3 consecutive V-league crowns, 1 Asia Championship gold medal, 1 World Championship bronze medal and countless individual awards in both domestic and international tournaments. And by 26 (the same age of Koga now), She already bagged an Olympic medal. I also thought Nagaoka or Risa would match Saori's achievements at the end of their pro careers but the injuries did them bad.
Performance-wise, Koga at the moment is a bit better on the net (block and attack) but still has a long way to go in order to match Saori's skills on the floor.
I feel like no one can stop Japan in this tournament and they can possibly win the title. Hoping for the bes
Im not sure whether JPN is too good or everyone else simply doesn't take this tournament seriously. Can't remember when was the last time JPN won against CHN with a set like 25-12. Let's see if Manabe can still play his magic against the real team A of Italy/USA/Brazil in later stages.
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My favorite players are Mizuki Tanaka and Kaneda. Are they not good enough? haha
Not sure about Kaneda, but M.Tanaka's style is quite similar to Hayashi, Uchiseto & Mayu, Manabe chose the latter.
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If I remember correctly, she's the 3rd Japanese to be playing in the French Ligue A besides Tashiro (VB Nantes) and Arisa Inoue (Saint-Raphael)!
I think Ebata, Sano, Ino - former NEC libero and Zayasu - former Saga libero did play in RC Cannes before. Is that club still active in France?
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Only 1 block?? Interesting... I assume the middles are attacking more than blocking?
Shimamura shed some lights with 3 kill blocks in USA match
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I wanna see Hammy instead of Ogawa and Kaneda instead of Mayu don't fight meI second this, Hammy or Hirayama can also attack from zone 2 like an Opp.
Anyone has a link for the USA-JPN replay? The qq vid was removed. Thank you so much!
Here you go:https://m.vidio.com/watch/7044…-league-2022-06-juni-2022
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What about Shimamura? Or has she not played any matches so far yet? (I didn't get too watch any of Japan's matches due to the timing)
She played from the 2nd set in the last match with DOM, subbing for Yamada and scored 1 block.
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It hurts to see after 3 matches, the best JPN blocker is Koga with 5 kill blocks. Meanwhile Yamada and Ogawa only got 1 each. Blocking wise, this is the worst MB line within this tournament thus far
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