[People s Daily]Guangdong Volleyball Derby: a Long-absent High-level Compe

Source: People s Daily. Dec. 13 2009

This is an exciting competition in which both sides had very good performance. commented by two coaches after Guangdong Evergrande defeated Guangdong Taishan with 3-1 in Dec. 12. This was shared by many experienced reporters who said emotionally that it s quite a long time before they watched such a high-level competition, which was even more exciting than many of the Group A.

Evergrande has a luxurious lineup consisting mainly of the National players and foreign aides while Taishan primarily includes former PLA players and former National players like Chen Jing and Wang Lina. Evergrande outdoes Taishan in the overall strength and experience. In spite of this, it won the match with much effort by reversing in the case of one loss and the third game was concluded with high score of 29-27.

In the Guangdong Derby, there was not only direct dialogue between Lang Ping and Hu Jin both of whom were once coach of the National Team, but reunion of several players from the champion team of Athens Olympics, all of whom were naturally the most attractive stars in the competition.

It was quite a pleasure for Zhou Suhong, Feng Kun, Chen Jing and Wang Lina to see old friends again. Veterans like us have overcome numerous problems to continue our performance here, so we re very glad to see each other here, and to my delight, all of us remain in good state and played well, contributing to this wonderful competition. Feng Kun said emotionally after match.

Evergrande s strength is evident in that Feng Kun, Yang Hao and Zhou Suhong have been in cooperation for eight years and they joined the team for Olympics last year. It is not surprising that we lost the match since I ve been in the team for just a month and our setters have much problem in cooperation with the spikers. Although Hu Jin kept on emphasizing that he was only a counsel of Taishan, reporters would like to interview him since they found easily from his words that he was actually the coach in control.

Although we won the match today, we re on thin ice in the process. A bitter competition is not of no good, since highlights are born from competitive matches. Our team is a new birth and sometimes has not a tacit cooperation in defense and counterattack, which needs to be improved. Lang said.

As a counsel of Taishan, Hu Jin became the focus of media despite his absence from the news release after match. When asked how to think about PK between Hu and her , Lang answered humorously, PK should be for players in the competition while mutual learning and respect are for coaches.

As to Hu Jin, Lang said meaningfully: Hu is a coach I respect very much. He s been the coach of Chinese National Women s Volleyball Team twice, and I once participated the 1990 World Tournament under his command. His wife is one of my former teammates; both of them are established coaches in China with much contribution to Chinese volleyball. We communicate and keep good friendship after training, but in the competition we are professionals who should strive for the best of the team.