sports

The second round of the 2025 first-division volleyball tournament took place at the Volleyball Gymnasium on Chongchun Street in Pyongyang amid the interest of experts and fans.

Since the games took place more than 30 days after the first round, the experts and fans were wondering whether the teams had worked out effective tactical plans on the basis of deep understandings of their rivals before attending the matches.

Both male and female April 25 teams triumphant

The men’s and women’s volleyball teams of the April 25 Sports Team, winners of the first round, took first place respectively again in the total rankings of the recent event.

In the men’s event, they fully demonstrated their high ability as a national power by threatening the rival teams with jump serves, diverse tactics and smart and powerful strikes and supporting the attack with strong defence.

Meanwhile, the April 25 women’s team made a clean sweep of the tournament.

The team beat all the opponents with overwhelming margins by mainly relying on an attacker with a strong striking power.

In particular, they fully displayed their strong offensive power in the last match against the Pyongyang team.

Since both teams had won all the previous matches, their confrontation, which would have a crucial impact on the final rankings, was very fierce from the beginning.

The April 25 team earned scores by continuously putting pressure on the opponents from positions 3 and 4. The Pyongyang players, relatively short in stature, scored with strikes from different positions while strengthening blocking and receiving, but failed to turn the tide of the game.

Consequently, the April 25 women’s team won all the matches 3-0.

Bravely using new players

What is special about the recent tournament is that all teams boldly recruited new players.

Almost all teams, including Hyongjesan which is mainly composed of young players, actively engaged new players in the games.

In particular, the young players of the Pyongyang women’s team greatly contributed to the team’s runner-up finish.

“Today’s match is important, but tomorrow’s match is also important. These important matches require us to put much effort to training reserve players,” said Kim Myong Sun, coach of Pyongyang.

It is a common intention of the coaches to make their teams play vigorous and speedy games in a fresh way by achieving technical development with the help of new players who do not cling to conventional tactics or experience.