Honda Center One Year Before the 2028 Olympics: Vietnam's Women's Volleyball and a Road Nobody Has Finished Drawing

Opening

The wooden floor of Honda Center in Anaheim is polished to the point where it reflects the entire ceiling rig. Standing in the twelfth row, above the sideline, you hear the players' footsteps before you hear the whistle. I noticed that detail in a short film released by the LA28 organizing committee when it confirmed that Honda Center will host the indoor volleyball tournament at the 2028 Summer Olympics. There is no rally in that film. Nobody scores. There is only light, wooden flooring, and empty seats waiting to be filled.

One year before the opening ceremony, someone is rehearsing for a large stage, and that stage has no lead actor yet. I write these lines from Nagoya, watching winter touch the low rooftops outside my window, and I ask myself: in that perfectly staged emptiness, where will Vietnam's women's volleyball team stand? The ball does not cry, but the storyteller does.

Honda Center and the mechanics of an Olympics

Honda Center sits in Anaheim, California, about fifty kilometres southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is a multi-purpose arena with a capacity of roughly eighteen thousand seats, once the home of the Anaheim Ducks ice hockey team, and it has hosted countless concerts, mixed martial arts events and basketball games. The choice of this venue for indoor volleyball carries a clear logic: LA28 needed a space large enough to hold the audience of a sport that is growing fast in the United States, yet flexible enough to switch between men's and women's sessions on the same day.

As the organizers describe it, Honda Center will be operated as a rehearsal environment for the Olympic volleyball tournament before the Games officially begin. For someone who has sat in a commentary booth for four decades, that word rehearsal makes me pause. Rehearsal is a theatre concept. In sport, you do not rehearse emotion. You get one chance to live it.

The 2028 Summer Olympics are scheduled to run from the fourteenth to the thirtieth of July 2028 in Los Angeles. The indoor volleyball tournament is likely to keep the structure used at Paris 2026: twelve men's and twelve women's teams, split into pools, playing round-robin matches before the knockout rounds. Of those twelve spots, one belongs to host nation the United States. The rest are allocated through the International Volleyball Federation qualification system, based on world ranking and continental championship results.

On the media side, this is an Olympics designed for streaming more than any Games before it. American streaming platforms have signed long-term deals, and volleyball has been placed among the flagship content. That means a pool match between two unheralded teams can still reach millions of viewers. For Vietnam's women's volleyball, this is a door that did not exist ten years ago.

Where Vietnam's women's volleyball actually stands

To talk about opportunity, you first have to talk about position. Based on my years of watching matches and tracking the International Volleyball Federation rankings, I always start with a simple question: where does this team stand, and how wide is the gap to the leading group? For Vietnam's women's volleyball, the answer is less comfortable than the regional victories usually cited.

Over the past decade or so, Vietnam's women's volleyball has made real progress. The team has won the women's AVC Challenge Cup, appeared at the FIVB Challenger Cup, and is regularly among the leaders in Southeast Asia. Names such as Tran Thi Thanh Thuy, Nguyen Thi Bich Tuyen, Nguyen Thi Kim Lien, Hoang Thi Kieu Trinh, Doan Thi Lam Oanh, Tran Tu Linh, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh and Pham Thi Nguyet Anh have become familiar to domestic audiences. Head coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet has led the team for years with a clear philosophy: prioritise speed at the setter position, exploit quick attacks from the middle blockers, and build a resilient backcourt.

But the regional stage and the world stage are two different worlds. In Southeast Asia, an outside hitter standing one metre eighty can dominate. At world level, that same height must face middle blockers over one metre ninety, outside hitters who spike at three metres twenty, and liberos who read the ball so quickly that human reflexes are pushed to their limit. The gap between Vietnam's women's volleyball and the world's top ten is not a gap of will; it is a gap of height, of contact speed, and of the number of high-level competitive minutes each athlete accumulates every year.

That last number deserves attention. A female player on Vietnam's national team might play a few dozen matches in a year, mostly in the domestic league and regional events. A player in the same position for Japan, China or Thailand, competing in the Volleyball Nations League, might face top-ten teams fifteen to twenty times a season, not counting international friendlies and continental championships. The gap in minutes spent facing elite opposition, over time, creates a gap that sheer effort cannot close.

I remember an evening in Nagoya, watching a recording of a Vietnam women's match against an East Asian side. In the first set, Vietnam's block read the attack well, shutting down two cross-court lines. By the third set, the players' legs were heavier, and their blocking footwork was half a beat slower. Half a beat, at world level, is everything. The opponent simply changed the setting rhythm, stretched the distance between the two middle blockers, and the gap opened. That match was not lost for lack of technique. It was lost for lack of a physical foundation built from thousands of hours of elite competition beforehand.

The qualification road: twelve doors and one narrow one

Twelve spots for an Olympics. Host nation the United States holds one. The rest are divided across qualifying groups and world ranking. For Vietnam's women's volleyball, this is a problem every coach knows how to solve but very few ever reach.

The first door is the Asian Championship. Winning Asia almost guarantees a direct Olympic berth, or at least a very high position in the ranking system. But to win Asia, a team must overcome Japan, China, Thailand and South Korea, all with physical foundations, height and international experience that are far superior. For many years, Thailand has been the only Southeast Asian team regularly able to squeeze into that competitive group, and even Thailand has never reached an Olympic medal.

The second door is the world qualifying tournament. This is where teams are placed into concentrated pools, play round-robin matches, and the top two in each pool earn a ticket. For a team outside the world's top twenty, landing in a qualifying pool capable of earning a ticket is close to impossible, because those pools usually gather the strongest teams.

The third door is world ranking. This is the quietest path, and the one many smaller teams are pursuing. The International Volleyball Federation world ranking is calculated from official international match results, with different weightings depending on the tournament and the opponent's ranking. Beating a strong team earns more points than beating a weak one. That means to climb, a team must play strong teams, and must beat them. This is precisely the spiral Vietnam's women's volleyball is caught in: to climb the ranking you must play strong teams; to play strong teams you must have a high ranking.

World ranking is not a neutral table; it is a self-feeding closed system, where teams already holding tickets to major tournaments keep receiving more chances to accumulate points, while teams outside must wait for a rare crack in the door. For Vietnam's women's volleyball, that crack is usually called the AVC Challenge Cup, the FIVB Challenger Cup, or an invitation to an international friendly. Every time the team steps through that crack, it must exploit it fully, because the opportunity does not come often.

I once watched a small team win a regional event and immediately be invited to a bigger one. Within two years, its ranking jumped from outside forty to near twenty. That jump was not a miracle; it came from playing stronger teams, losing, learning, and accumulating high-level competitive minutes. Vietnam's women's volleyball is at exactly the point where such a push could change its trajectory. But that push needs one condition: the team must be given the opportunity, and must have the resources not to drop it.

The women who make the numbers

Behind every ranking number are people. I have always believed that people do not remember scores; they remember faces. And in Vietnam's women's volleyball, there are faces I believe will be remembered for a long time.

Tran Thi Thanh Thuy is the kind of outside hitter any volleyball nation would want: tall, powerful, and capable of carrying the team in the hardest moments. She has played abroad, faced blocks a hand taller than her, and those experiences forged her into a leader on court. When the team is stuck, the ball usually goes to her position, and she usually scores. That is a burden few want to carry.

Nguyen Thi Bich Tuyen at opposite brings a different attacking dimension. Her jump and hitting angles force the opposing block to redistribute, and that redistribution opens gaps for the middle blockers. In volleyball, a good opposite does not just score; she stretches the block and makes the whole attacking system harder to read.

Nguyen Thi Kim Lien, at libero, is the kind of player the media often overlooks. She does not score, and her name is not called on the scoreboard when the team wins a rally, but every time she reads a spike and digs the ball up, a whole new attack is born. The libero is the position whose value is not measured by statistics, but by the number of rallies the team avoids losing because she was in the right place. That is the kind of value the camera rarely chooses as its focus.

Hoang Thi Kieu Trinh, Doan Thi Lam Oanh, Tran Tu Linh, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh, Pham Thi Nguyet Anh: each with a role, each with a story. Some grew up in a small province, training on a concrete court before being discovered. Some left their studies to pursue the game. Some suffered knee injuries and had to start again from zero. Those stories do not appear on the scoreboard, but they are the foundation of every number.

I thought I was telling their story, but it turned out they were telling mine. Because when I watch a libero quietly dig a ball in silence, I recognise myself in the years spent behind the scenes, doing work nobody sees, just so that a single rally can make it to air.

Home court and the trap of excitement

One factor rarely analysed when discussing Vietnam's women's volleyball prospects is the role of home court and of international events hosted domestically. Vietnam has repeatedly hosted regional and international tournaments, including VTV Cup editions that gather teams from several countries. Hosting means playing on familiar ground, being cheered by a home crowd, and, more importantly, accumulating ranking points without long travel.

But hosting has its trap. A team playing at home tends to choose opponents of similar strength to guarantee good results, which inadvertently lowers the quality of the contest. I have seen friendly tournaments staged under an international banner but effectively containing only evenly matched teams, with the result that the host wins beautifully, the crowd is happy, and the tactical lessons gained are close to zero. Meanwhile, a short training camp abroad, though costly and less glamorous, can bring back more lessons than an entire home tournament.

This leads to a paradox I have observed across many women's sports: the pressure to win in front of a home crowd sometimes pushes coaching staff toward the safe path, and that safe path, in the long run, slows development. To step out into the world, sometimes a team must accept losing at home, in front of its own fans, in order to learn what an easy win cannot teach.

The counter-intuitive angle: when rehearsal becomes the trap

Back to Honda Center and that word rehearsal. There is one thing rehearsals always conceal: they are designed so that everything runs smoothly. Lights right, sound right, floor right, timing right. But sport does not operate on the logic of a rehearsal. Sport operates on the logic of controlled chaos: an injury in the thirtieth minute, a controversial referee decision in the deciding set, a player in tears under pressure, a stand silent enough to choke on.

This is where I want to say plainly something the sports industry often avoids. An arena being operated as a rehearsal environment for an Olympics sounds like professional preparation. But if that rehearsal focuses only on infrastructure, on broadcasting, on the spectator experience, and not on creating high-level competitive opportunities for smaller teams, then it only perfects the shell. The shell can be polished until it reflects the entire lighting rig. But inside that shell, who will play?

There is a structural truth I believe is the biggest blind spot of the whole system. Women's competitions, however much is invested in their infrastructure, still operate as a closed ecosystem if competitive opportunities are not opened to all teams; a beautiful arena does not create stars, only playing against the very best creates stars. This holds for women's volleyball, for women's football, and for women's esports too.

I have observed this for years. When a women's sport is invested in for image but not in an open competition system, the usual result is a handful of stars the media mentions often, while the majority of athletes still compete in the dark. Commercial value rises, but competitive value does not rise in step. And when competitive value does not rise, at some point commercial value will also stall, because audiences can be drawn in by a beautiful story, but they only stay if the quality of competition is enough to hold them.

For Vietnam's women's volleyball, this trap takes a specific shape. If the national team only plays regionally, only gets invited to evenly matched events, and is only mentioned by the media on occasions of victory, then every step forward will have a ceiling. To truly advance, the team needs to play Japan, China, Thailand, Italy, Brazil, Poland, teams for whom every match is an expensive lesson. And to play them, the team needs ranking, needs resources, and needs a long-term strategy that is not cut short by the pressure of immediate results.

There is a small detail I always think about when discussing this. In volleyball, a strong team does not just need good players; it needs a youth development system capable of producing players over one metre ninety, setters with vision, and liberos with reflexes. For Vietnam's women's volleyball, height remains a biological limit hard to overcome in the short term. That means the team cannot compete on height, but must compete on speed, on technique, on tactics, and on a resilient defence. This is the path Japan once took, and it is the most viable path for Vietnam.

But that path requires something Vietnam's women's volleyball still lacks: accumulated high-level competitive time. Japan built its speed game not only through training, but through decades of competing in the Volleyball Nations League, at world championships, at Olympic Games. Every year, Japanese players play dozens of matches against the best teams on the planet. That accumulation creates something no money and no will can buy: elite competitive experience.

At fifty-eight, I no longer remember the scores; I remember the face of the scorer. And in those faces, I see something the ranking cannot express: desire. Vietnam's women's volleyball has desire. What it lacks is the structure to turn that desire into results.

On what is changing

One year before the Olympics, as Honda Center is being polished for opening day, something is changing that I believe matters more than infrastructure. It is the way young audiences approach women's sport. The new generation of fans no longer waits for a heroic saga told from above. They find athletes through social media, they follow clubs, they watch matches that were not broadcast ten years ago. This shift, in the long run, could move the entire power structure of women's sport.

For Vietnam's women's volleyball, this brings a new opportunity. A Vietnamese player today can be discovered by a fan in Europe through a short clip, something the previous generation never had. Global attention, however small, also creates new pressure on federations: if you do not let your team compete, you will be left behind.

I do not count the matches. I count the stories allowed on air. And in recent years, the number of stories about Vietnam's women's volleyball allowed on air has grown. That is a sign. Not a sign of a victory, but a sign of a door opening.

Conclusion

Honda Center will open its doors in July 2028. Of the twelve women's teams that will walk onto that wooden floor, we already know most of the names. Vietnam's women's volleyball may not be there. It may also be that, with a run of matches against the strongest teams, with a new generation of players, and with a properly built structure, the team will stand there.

But whatever the result, the real question is not the ticket. The question is whether we have enough patience to watch Vietnam's women's volleyball long enough, not only on occasions of victory, but also in the exhausted training sessions, the meaningless defeats, and the years when nobody remembers the names. Women's volleyball does not need anyone to rescue it; it needs someone willing to watch long enough.

Tokyo left me behind, and in that turn I found tactics. Perhaps Vietnam's women's volleyball is at such a turn too. And if so, what we need to do is not shout from the stands, but sit still, look closely, and take notes. Because the history of women's sport is not written by those who shout loudest, but by those who are most patient.