Thong Tin reach the final as Long An lose Kim Thanh and their crown

Late in the third set, with VTV Bình Điền Long An four points ahead and the Vĩnh Long crowd beginning to believe in a comeback, Kim Thanh jumped to attack from the opposite position. She landed, crumpled, and clutched her ankle. Her crying became clearer than the referee’s calls. Two teammates helped her off. One offered a towel; another turned away. On the scoreboard, the score stayed 16-16. The semifinal of the 2026 Vietnamese national women’s volleyball championship, on the evening of 24 October 2026, changed direction at that exact moment.

At this year’s tournament, Long An entered the match as defending champion. Binh chủng Thông tin – Binh đoàn 19 is the military club built around two foreign players, Temi Thomas Ailara and Erika Pritchard. The match was played at the Vĩnh Long provincial gymnasium. The winner would meet Hà Nội Tasco Auto in the final at 19:30 on 25 October 2026. The gap between semifinal and final was under 24 hours. That made the semifinal more than a fight for a final place; it was also a test of fitness and squad depth.

Long An began with a familiar pattern: high balls to both wings, tempo held by safe setting, and reliance on the experience of its core group. Thông Tin answered with the power of its foreign pair. The first set ended 25-19. A five-point gap opened after a run of rallies in which the Thông Tin block read Long An’s attacking direction. Quỳnh Hương produced effective blocks and slowed the opponent’s rhythm. Long An still made a few fine plays, but could not hold the balance after each rotation.

In the second set, Long An raised the pace. The block was tighter, and shorter attacks were used more often to stretch the Thông Tin block. The teams stayed close to the final points. Thông Tin still had its foreign pair as an anchor, but this time the imports had to attack under pressure. The second set ended 25-23. A 2-0 scoreline did not capture the tension. Anyone who follows Vietnamese women’s volleyball knows that a 23-25 loss often leaves a deeper mark than a 19-25 loss.

The third set was the clearest part of the story. Long An led by four points. The crowd began to change the mood. Long rallies appeared. Lữ Thị Phương, Long An’s middle blocker, became the scoring outlet through the middle. She attacked quickly, blocked, and kept her team alive through difficult rotations. That was a sign that Long An had to shift its attack inward after losing a wing threat. The score moved from 16-16 to 23-25. Long An did not collapse at once. The team still had the ball, still had chances, but unforced errors arrived at the moment when composure mattered most.

Thông Tin won through error discipline, not through raw power alone. That is the point I want to stress after reviewing the flow. The foreign pair gave Thông Tin firepower, but what kept the team standing in the last two sets was its ability to limit mistakes. Long An was at times the better attacking side and the better blocking side, yet it allowed the opponent to claw back point by point with rallies that did not need to be spectacular. Elite volleyball is often decided in the last 20 points of a set, where the team that errs less usually wins. This semifinal was a clear example.

One immediate note: the match report did not publish technical statistics. There was no spike success rate, no block count, no serve efficiency, and no perfect-pass rate. Any conclusion about attacking efficiency should therefore stay at the level of observation. I do not want to invent data without a source. What is certain is the set score: 25-19, 25-23, 25-23. The last two sets were decided by two points. The 3-0 margin on the scoreboard made Thông Tin’s win look easier than it was.

That is why I read the match on two levels. One layer is Kim Thanh’s injury. She is an opposite hitter, the most important attacking role in the modern game. When the opposite leaves the court, a team loses a scoring outlet, a player who can take difficult balls, and a voice on the floor. Long An had to reshuffle in mid-match. The fact that Lữ Thị Phương became the scoring outlet in the third set shows that the ball was pushed through the middle more often. That was a reasonable solution, and it was also a sign that the wing attack had lost stability.

The other layer is Long An’s squad structure. A champion team needs a backup plan at opposite. When Kim Thanh was injured, Long An had no like-for-like replacement. The team still fought, still led by four in the third set, but could not hold the rhythm to the end. That is a lesson about depth. Vietnamese women’s volleyball has several strong first-choice lineups, but few clubs prepare well enough for the loss of a core player in mid-tournament. Long An paid with a place in the final.

On the other side, Thông Tin showed the model that wins short tournaments: use imports to create firepower, rotate the two foreign players across phases, and keep the system within a safe range. The “alternating” use of Temi Thomas Ailara and Erika Pritchard suggests that the coaching staff had planned for load management. That is a strength. It also creates a weakness: if the foreign pair is contained or tires in the final, Thông Tin’s scoring base narrows. The final against Hà Nội Tasco Auto will test that question.

I do not see the use of imports as a bad thing. In short tournaments, imports raise the technical level and create competitive pressure for domestic players. The issue is whether a club builds a domestic foundation. If every knockout match is left to imports, positions such as opposite and outside hitter at home will struggle for high-level repetitions. I have written several times on my Bình Dương Sports Her channel that women’s volleyball should be viewed as an ecosystem, not a race to buy imports. The court does not ask for gender; it asks whether a person dares to stand up. But the game also cannot nourish only a few stars.

Kim Thanh’s story raises another issue. The media calls her “the beauty of volleyball”. That label can help fans know her, but it can also obscure something important: she is an elite athlete, an opposite who carries scoring pressure, a player who trains every day to stand in the hardest role on the court. When she cried from injury, what people saw was a person in pain. That moment should not be turned into a story of pity. She did not leave the court because she was weak. She left because of a bad landing.

I have a habit of recording small details in conversations with women players. During the “Women Players Tell Their Stories” livestream series in 2026, one player told me that the hardest thing was not injury itself, but the feeling of sitting out while the team needed her. Kim Thanh will probably understand that feeling. An ankle sprain can keep a player out for weeks, perhaps longer. The report did not specify the severity. The club has not published the examination result. The signal to watch is the official club update, not online speculation.

Tactically, the semifinal showed that Long An tried to change after losing Kim Thanh. The team no longer attacked predictably down the right wing. Middle attacks to Lữ Thị Phương helped extend rallies. But when the match reached the decisive points, Long An lacked a player who could manufacture a point from a heavy ball. Thông Tin had the foreign pair for that job. The difference was not a superior tactical scheme; it was the ability to solve the final balls. That is why 25-23 appeared twice.

I also want to give Hà Nội Tasco Auto its due. They reached the final without spending energy in a second semifinal the way Long An had to. A recovery window of under 24 hours is a disadvantage for Thông Tin, who had just played a full three sets. In volleyball, one fewer day of rest may not change a match completely, but it affects the recovery of key attackers. If Thông Tin want the title, they need sensible rotation and must keep their blocking rhythm. Hà Nội Tasco Auto have the preparation advantage. The final is therefore a meeting of two strong teams and a meeting of two approaches to squad management.

Back to Kim Thanh. She left the court in tears, but she did not leave in silence. The Vĩnh Long crowd applauded. Teammates bowed their heads. Opponents paused for a few seconds. Those moments reminded me why I chose to write about women’s sport. I once sat in the stands applauding; now I sit at the commentary desk so others do not have to applaud alone. Equality does not mean everyone reaches the finish line together; it means everyone gets a fair starting line. For Kim Thanh, that starting line is a decent chance to recover, a clear diagnosis, and an environment calm enough for her to return.

The semifinal result is settled: Binh chủng Thông tin – Binh đoàn 19 are in the final, and VTV Bình Điền Long An have lost their crown. What remains after the match goes beyond a scoreline. It is a lesson about squad depth, about how imports are used, and about how the media treats a woman athlete when she is injured. I want Long An to answer with a long-term plan, not with a rushed statement. I want Thông Tin to prove they can live on domestic players when needed. And I want Kim Thanh to return to the court with a safer landing. Vietnamese women’s volleyball needs stories like this, not to invite pity, but to help fans understand that every rally has a person behind it.