The risk Lang Ping took is paid off

[xin]

Being a Chinese volleyball fan living in the UK, it is not easy to find other like minded people to talk about the joy of the games, as it is not really a sport with much popularity here. 
Here's my first try to come here and share some of the thoughts I have while watching the Olympic games. 

When Lang Ping announced the final roster for the Chinese team towards the end of July, the Chinese media and fans were quick to question her choice for setters and opposite hitters, in particular, Qiuyue Wei and Xiangyu Gong.  Wei has got a lot of experience but she'd not been recovering very well since her knee surgery in 2014, which led her to be criticised a lot for her slow moving and weak defence by fans and media.  Gong is only 19 and has never played in the Olympics, the World Championship or the World Cup games. Whether or not she can hold her nerves at all was a big question. 

Because of these two,  Jingsi Shen(setter) and Chunlei Zeng(Opposite) couldn't make it to Rio. Jingsi was the back up setter for Wei during the 2014 Championship and the main setter during the 2015 World Cup. She was dropped largely due to her poor performance in the 2016 World Grand Prix series. Quite a few times, Ding Xia had to be brought in to turn the situation around on court.  Whereas for Gong, it was more of a gamble that Lang Ping admitted to have taken. Gong is young with a lot of potentials, just lacking some experience. 'We can't just look at Rio. We have to think about Tokyo too. It is quite possible that Gong won't perform very well, but this experience will benefit her as well as the Chinese team when it comes to the 2020 Olympics. As a coach, I have to take risks.', explained Lang Ping.

Well so far, all seemed to have gone as expected. Wei's setting has proven to be crucial in the match again Brasil and Gong finally shined in the last two sets in the match against the Netherlands. Gong was hugging Lang Ping in tears after that match, saying to her 'Oh my dear mother god, I was scared to death!!!'. Whispering back into her ears, Lang Ping said 'You played really brave and well! you have to remember the feeling you are having right now. This is very important experience for your future games'. 

the risk paid off already, I would say.

[trojansc]

Lang Ping is definitely the "coach of the olympics" award if it so existed.

She has made plenty of gutsy calls, effective use of challenges (at times as a delay), and use of her entire 12-woman roster.

She also has had a brilliant game plan. Not riding Zhu in the prelims, exclusively riding Zhu in the quarters & semis. Tomorrow's Gold will be a special one! Gotta pull for the Serbian side though!

[xin]

Aug 19, 2016 9:06:55 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Lang Ping is definitely the "coach of the olympics" award if it so existed.

She has made plenty of gutsy calls, effective use of challenges (at times as a delay), and use of her entire 12-woman roster.

She also has had a brilliant game plan. Not riding Zhu in the prelims, exclusively riding Zhu in the quarters & semis. Tomorrow's Gold will be a special one! Gotta pull for the Serbian side though!

I can't agree more. 
No one knows how to use Zhu Ting's power better than she does, because she was the Zhu Ting herself back in the 80s. She's experienced it all and knew it all too well. 

[kurtndiego]

I also think it was a good coaching move as well when she kept her star players and herself out of the World Grand Prix. I'm sure she was hard at work @ home with them and obviously it paid off.

[vampiro]

Not only her roster, Lang Ping was also a genius with her substitutions. She certainly didn't play around. Seeing her hugging and crying with them after the match was also really touching. I don't think her team is very strong but she works with what she's got brilliantly.

[pumpkin]

Also she was the reason the USA took silver in 2008., With her super subs of Willoughby (spelling sry) & Berg and of course the defense of Tom... Lang Ping is an excellent Coach I wish she would have stayied with the USA...

[bill]

Pink has communication issues with our team...plus she just doesn't understand our culture...we need her about as badly as our Men's Water Polo needs another Eastern European Coach...how's that been working out for us???

[Pipe Attack]

Aug 20, 2016 11:41:47 GMT -5 pumpkin said:

Also she was the reason the USA took silver in 2008., With her super subs of Willoughby (spelling sry) & Berg and of course the defense of Tom... Lang Ping is an excellent Coach I wish she would have stayied with the USA...

And if you looked at how she managed that tournament, you can see how it evolved. I believe it initially started with Willoughby on the outside (since she had a good Grand Prix leading up I think). Then, when things weren't going so smoothly, she reshifted line ups. Turned Willoughby into a super sub. Did double subs when warranted. But also when things did not go as planned (ie. Ah Mow vs Italy .... then the tactical shift of using Berg who then destroyed Italy). I know we are not the coach of this team, but that's a problem I saw. This current quad system was too cookie-cutter (maybe so no matter what part was inserted it would work as well as another) which did not allow for too much flexibility. That's why, as a fan, I was also a bit concerned with Kiraly -- because he would be going up against very tactical international coaches who worked enough with professional volleyball where they could make in game changes as needed (primarily Guidetti and Ping). I feel like Lang Ping, had a strategy on how to approach pool play (and it was pretty gutsy) -- maybe she altered it after the first day loss to Netherlands ... and then flipped it during the playoff rounds.

I also like how she always likes to look at the future. For example, I remember she was molding Foluke in that quad (altho she didn't make the final roster) and Destinee even got the opportunity to play (in which I didn't think was possible being that she didn't seem to be a primary passer her non senior year in college -- she might of been maybe a junior at that time). She also talked well about the possibilities of Faucette (Texas).

I just really like the way how she can take different people's strengths and make a system that works around those strengths. (Rather than a system that dictates ... not taking a jab at what the US has done ... because at least we have medaled). I remember watching them one time and thought -- wow, China can play high ball volleyball, but yet they can mix in the fast plays (ala USA/Brazil) also. Thought she really re-ignited US volleyball. Feels like she is now doing the same with China. It's not always a pretty looking quad, but seems like she has an intent -- and then it usually comes to fruition around Olympic time. (But I also feel she takes some risks -- and sometimes they pay off while sometimes they may not).

With that said, with Karch, at least you can appreciate that he believed in a system ... and then stuck with it! While it finds success, somehow, when the parts start not working as planned (in high stakes situations) -- the system becomes questionable.

[gobruins]

Aug 20, 2016 16:20:37 GMT -5 bill said:

we need her about as badly as our Men's Water Polo needs another Eastern European Coach...how's that been working out for us???

It worked out about the same as the last Olympics with an American coach.

[ironhammer]

Have to agree with you OP. Lang Pang proved me wrong. I thought the Chinese were finished after their pool matches. I thought Brazil would easily finished off China. How wrong I was.

This gold medal for China owes a huge amount to Lang Ping. More so than other NT coaches, Lang was crucial in turning around an inconsistent and inexperienced team around.

So here's to Lang Pang, the ironhammer.

[VolleyTX]

Lang Ping developed a team where anyone could come into the match at almost any time. She really did have a full team and took full advantage of them. As opposed to the US squad (or any other for that matter) who talked a good game about having all the pieces.... where there was not loss brining in bench players, but it never/rarely happened. What they said they were trying to develop was what Lang Ping did. What they really developed was a squad of 7, with a cheer leading squad.

[Pipe Attack]

Aug 21, 2016 20:24:06 GMT -5 VolleyTX said:

Lang Ping developed a team where anyone could come into the match at almost any time. She really did have a full team and took full advantage of them. As opposed to the US squad (or any other for that matter) who talked a good game about having all the pieces.... where there was not loss brining in bench players, but it never/rarely happened. What they said they were trying to develop was what Lang Ping did. What they really developed was a squad of 7, with a cheer leading squad.

With that said though, China does live and die with Zhu Ting. So, if something happened to her, it would not have been favorable for them. Luckily she's young and strong still though. I thought what Lang Ping did well (which is sort of like what you're hinting to) was create a team, where they were strong enough to do without Zhu Ting (and they did just that ... supporting players played good enough in prelims and when it was time to take it to another level, they were able to do that ... by now having Zhu Ting go full speed and set as many times as necessary). I thought the US was sort of taking that approach with maybe Kim Hill and the back row pipes from various hitters (like maybe they would be unleashed).. but nope.

[bill]

Aug 21, 2016 8:18:46 GMT -5 gobruins said:

Aug 20, 2016 16:20:37 GMT -5 bill said:

we need her about as badly as our Men's Water Polo needs another Eastern European Coach...how's that been working out for us???

It worked out about the same as the last Olympics with an American coach.

Our women seem to be doing OK with an American Coach, in WP especially

[gobruins]

Aug 21, 2016 23:00:59 GMT -5 bill said:

Aug 21, 2016 8:18:46 GMT -5 gobruins said:

It worked out about the same as the last Olympics with an American coach.

Our women seem to be doing OK with an American Coach, in WP especially

Women's Water Polo and Men's Water Polo are worlds apart. The NCAA is, arguably, the best women's WP in the world. In men's it is not even close.

Who would you like to see coaching the USA Men's Water Polo team?

[xin]

Aug 21, 2016 20:24:06 GMT -5 VolleyTX said:

Lang Ping developed a team where anyone could come into the match at almost any time. She really did have a full team and took full advantage of them. As opposed to the US squad (or any other for that matter) who talked a good game about having all the pieces.... where there was not loss brining in bench players, but it never/rarely happened. What they said they were trying to develop was what Lang Ping did. What they really developed was a squad of 7, with a cheer leading squad.

I don't think that was her initial idea. For some reason this Chinese squad has been prone to injuries. It all started in 2014. The main MB Yunli Xu was injured in the match against Dominica in the 2014 World Championship. Then Opposite Fangxu Yang was injured in the Grand Prix in Japan in early 2015. Captain Ruoqi Hui was diagnosed with heart inflammation a day before she was supposed to fly to Japan for the world cup last year. All these incidents made her realise that she couldn't just rely on 6 players, she had to make sure all her 12/14 players could come in at any time and still manage to play at a relatively high level. To achieve that, she mixed up the teams intentionally for pretty much every match in the Montreux Masters and Grand Prix series. so some times we would even see 3 different line ups in a 3 set match. together with the use of double substitutions, 5 or 6 different combinations of players were tested out in every match.  

And it actually proved to be crucial during the Olympics. At the last point against Italy in the preliminary round, Fangxu Yang was injured again.  From the next match onwards, number 9 Changning Zhang who was originally an outside hitter was put onto opposite position and she managed well. This at least earned enough time for Fangxu Yang to recover until the final. 

When people talk about how effective Lang Ping's choice of substitutions are during matches, they should also realise that she had been practising these different tactics for a long time. These substitutions would only work when the substitutes can execute well.