Volleyball Nations League: China fans question coach Cai Bin after back-to-back losses in Hong Kong
- Having gone unbeaten in opening six games of tournament, China slip to fourth spot after defeats by Poland and Italy
- ‘We certainly have a lot of room for improvement and that includes our ability to kill the game,’ coach Cai Bin says
China head coach Cai Bin urged his team “to fix the problems” after they suffered back-to-back defeats against Poland and Italy at the Volleyball Nations League in Hong Kong.
Facing the defending champions at the Hong Kong Coliseum, world No 4 China twice took the lead before the Italians levelled things up and eventually walked away with a 23-25, 25-23, 18-25, 25-22, 15-12 win in a five-set thriller.
“We certainly have a lot of room for improvement, and that includes our ability to kill the game,” Cai, who returned to the helm last year after a one-year stint in 2009, said. “We will face some different opponents in Korea so I’ll be studying their style later.”
Yuan Xinyue, China’s captain, was more specific and said she believed the team has to “do a better job” in terms of blocking, when addressing the media post-match.
“We went for the win, but our blocking against Poland was not good, and we had some adjustments,” Yuan – who had 15 points in the loss against Italy – said.
