KOBE Shinwa University schooled ZUS Coffee in its first game back in the Philippines, eight years since lifting the 2017 Philippine Superliga (PSL) Invitational Cup title.
READ: Kobe Shinwa blanks ZUS Coffee in PH volleyball return
Nearly a decade later, Kiyokazu Yamamoto remains the champion school’s head coach, as they finally set foot in the PVL after aborting their initial comeback three years ago due to the pandemic.
It might be a different team he’s bringing in a different league against different opposition, but there’s been one striking change Yamamoto noticed in their first few days back in Manila.
The Japanese mentor actually held an unpopular opinion - inside Philippine volleyball circles, at least - that Filipino players grew taller and more defensive nearly a decade later.
“It's been eight years since I came here. After eight years, I saw Philippine volleyball and how Philippine volleyball has changed,” Yamamoto said in Nihonggo following their 25-24, 27-25, 25-17 sweep of the Thunderbelles to open the 2025 PVL Invitational Conference.
“Yes, the level of the defense has improved a lot. And the height of the players has increased a lot. Not only the middle players, but also the other players. The number of players with high performance has also increased a lot.”
Kobe Shinwa captain Sakura Furuta echoed the sentiment and cited how she had to regularly adjust to ZUS Coffee’s taller defense, which didn’t even have 6-foot-2 Thea Gagate.
“The Philippine team [ZUS Coffee] has many tall players. In west side Japan where we play, there aren’t a lot of tall university players,” she said. “Our strategy today was focused on getting past tall players.”
Performance over size
With an average age of 19, the inexperienced Japanese side looks to sharpen their craft in the week-long tournament against some of the PVL’s powerhouse squads.
“Most of the members who came here this time, except for the captain, had almost no experience abroad,” Yamamoto said.
“The most important thing was how to get used to the environment in the Philippines now that we were given a hard schedule of practice.”
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