For China's three major ball games, whether it is women's volleyball, women's basketball or women's football, its results are better than men's volleyball, men's basketball and men's football. Compared to the three major women's sports national teams that basically do not miss the World Series, the men's side is far behind. When basketball stars such as Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi had not yet retired, the Chinese men's basketball team still had a certain status in the world basketball world, and now the Chinese men's basketball team also has a trend of moving closer to the Chinese men's football team. Not to mention the Chinese men's team, the Chinese women's team is currently preparing for the Australian Women's World Cup, while the Chinese men's team has been repeatedly defeated on the way to the World Cup. Not to mention, the Chinese women's volleyball team should be the only team in the three major ball games that has the strength to impact the world championship. But when it comes to the Chinese men's volleyball team, many fans sighed: I didn't expect that the Asian champion was at this level, and it was indeed too watery.
Not long ago, from the 2023 Women's Water Polo World Cup, there was news that the Chinese women's water polo team performed very badly in this World Cup, directly coming to a wave of 6 consecutive losses, and finally ranked at the bottom of the group, was directly relegated, and fell to the second division. You know, although the Chinese women's water polo team started relatively late, but grew rapidly, the Chinese women's water polo team was officially established in 2004, and it only took 9 years to become the world champion. In the 2013 World Water Polo League, the Chinese women's water polo team finally had the last laugh after a bad start, winning the World Series and becoming the world champion. But what fans didn't expect was that ten years later, in 2023, the Chinese women's water polo team would be relegated due to poor results.
A similar situation to the Chinese women's water polo team is the Chinese men's volleyball team. There is no doubt that because the halo of the Chinese women's volleyball team is too dazzling, the Chinese men's volleyball team is basically in a neglected position among the three major ball sports teams. However, the team had a surprise highlight last year. On August 14, 2022, the Chinese men's volleyball team defeated the Japanese men's volleyball team 3:0 in the final of the 2022 Men's Volleyball Asian Cup held in Thailand to win the Asian Cup. However, the Chinese men's volleyball team, which participated in the 2023 World Men's Volleyball League as the champion of the Asian Cup, handed over a result that was very inconsistent with its identity in this World Men's Volleyball League.
In the first week of the match in Nagoya, Japan, the Chinese men's volleyball team performed well, after all, they defeated the Bulgarian men's volleyball team and the German men's volleyball team, achieving a 2-6 result, which also gave the Chinese team hope of relegation. However, in the second stop of the match in Pasay, Philippines, the Chinese men's volleyball team was difficult to win, losing to Japan, Slovenia, Brazil and Canada men's volleyball team one after another, directly coming to a wave of 4 consecutive defeats. In this way, the Chinese men's volleyball team played a total of 12 games in the World Men's Volleyball League, only 2 wins and 10 losses, and only a pitiful 6 points. 6 points put the Chinese men's volleyball team at the bottom of the ranking and was directly relegated.
After the relegation, the Chinese men's volleyball team can only return to the World Men's Volleyball League by participating in the Challenger Cup held in Doha, Qatar from July 27 to 30. Opponents also participating in the Challenger's Cup include hosts Qatar, Turkey, Ukraine, Tunisia, Chile and Dominica. However, if you want to become a champion, it is really not small, after all, the strength of teams such as Turkey and Ukraine is very good. In addition, the Chinese men's volleyball team will participate in the Universiade, which will be held from July 29 to August 7, and it is likely that the challenger cup will be abandoned due to the time conflict to choose the Universiade.