Spread 'Team Volleyball' in Thailand and Mongolia... the two coaches who spiked abroad
Spread 'Team Volleyball' in Thailand and Mongolia... the two coaches who spiked abroad
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"It's really common in Mongolia. But the heat at the volleyball court is extremely hot."
Early this month, he met with coach Lee Sun-kyu of the Hasu Mega Stars in Mongolia's Super Volleyball League and his "mentor" Park Ki-won of the Thai national team at a cafe in southern Seoul. The two coaches, who are exactly 30 years older than each other, were tall middle blockers who became famous not only in Korea but also in international competitions when they were active. When Park was leading the Korean national volleyball team, Lee also became a priest. As of 2025, Lee has left Korea and is successfully leading the national team in Mongolia and Thailand.
Lee left for an unfamiliar country in October last year when the 2024-2025 V-League kicked off. He became the first foreign coach to win the title in three months and the highest-ever win rate in the league. In the Mongolian Super Volleyball League, men play as seven teams and women's team as nine teams. It is Mongolia's flagship winter sport, with some 4,000 spectators flocking to the stage as of the championship game. All matches are held in two stadiums in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, and each team has four foreign players. The composition of players is also somewhat complicated due to the mixture of professional and unemployment concepts.
However, Lee led the Mongolian Super Volleyball League's second-ranked team to 17 wins and one loss, two wins in the semifinals, and three wins in the championship game. Lee displayed overwhelming performance with 22 wins and one loss in 23 matches, with the winning rate approaching 96 percent. Lee quickly established himself as a coach in a short period of time as he received offers from many teams in Mongolia as well as Hasu, who had signed a contract only for this season before returning to Korea. In Mongolia, Lee has even called it a "fresh wind." As the trend of foreign volleyball community's preference for leadership spread, Lee made the bold decision to stay in Korea and go overseas for survival rather than waiting for an unexpected opportunity, leading to the best outcome.
"It is right that the Korean leader is having a hard time at the Korean volleyball scene. There is a big difference between before and after I went to Mongolia to survive the competition," Lee said. "I was able to learn things that I had never experienced as a player and a leader. It will be a great help to my career as a leader going forward." Lee introduced substantial team volleyball in the Mongolian league, which mainly focused on individual volleyball, and achieved results in a short period of time. In addition, he also introduced video analysis for the first time in the Mongolian league. At the end of the season, more than half of the teams adopted video analysis following Lee. For this reason, Lee was highly praised by local volleyball fans for spreading new tactics, skills and experiences to Mongolia.
Park served as a mentor for Lee, who successfully took his first steps as a coach. Park started as a coach and player in Italy in his early 30s and is still active. In Italy, he coached 12 teams as well as lead coaches. From 2002 to 2006, he led the Iranian national team and won silver medals at the Busan Asian Games, earning him the nickname "father of Iranian volleyball." After returning to Korea as a coach of the V-League, he led not only professional teams including LIG Insurance (currently KB Insurance) and copyright but also the national team.
Her ample experience in the international arena led her to work for the development of international volleyball by chairing the coaching committee of the Asian Volleyball Federation and the technical committee of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB). She has been leading the Thai national team since 2023. Thai volleyball, which lacked interest and skills compared to world-class women's volleyball, has rapidly developed since Park's inauguration, re-establishing the team, and is seeing its performance and popularity soar. Thailand wants to renew its contract with Park whose contract expires this month.
Park, who has been serving as a leader overseas for a longer period of time than in Korea, has revealed "trade secrets" she has acquired through long-term experience for Lee and other junior leaders. In other words, she needs to study and learn in order to survive the fierce competition. "Korean leaders do not seem to have a certain level of leadership. However, they seem to make less effort to improve themselves," Park said. "In the past, domestic leaders were competing with each other, but now they have to fight the world. We need to accept the reality and prepare how we will survive. We need to conduct more thorough research." 바카라