Iran is future of Asia, Japan the best: Vital Heynen

According to The Iran Project, Iran showed a poor performance in the 2024 Volleyball National League and failed to book their place in Olympics.

Iran’s volleyball is in turmoil following the national team’s disappointing performance in the competition and the subsequent dismissal of Brazilian coach Mauricio Paes. The team finished 15th out of 16, with only two wins and 10 losses.

Heynen, who was appointed as China head coach in April, believes that the country’s volleyball will overcome its challenges soon.

Tehran Times: France won back-to-back title in the 2024 Olympic Games, beating your former team Poland. The U.S. also finished in third place. Do you think France are the most powerful team in the world?

Vital Heynen: Are France the most powerful? I mean, France are the most victorious team. If you win VNL and if you win two times Olympic gold, you are clearly the most winning team but I'm not sure if they're the best. That's always the other thing. Because I think the best team are Poland. If you look to the world ranking, I think it's a correct world ranking. If you look over all the matches in the last years, Poland are the most regular team. But France have this amazing quality to be good on the right moment. And that's so important in sports. And France are very good and I mean the best team at the moment. And that's the quality of top players. So that you have to give them. But I still consider Poland as the most complete team if you look to all the players they have.

Japan, as an Asian team, stole the show in 2024 VNL and Olympics. They are your opponents in Asia as well as Iran. You, as China coach, will have a difficult task against the teams, especially Japan. Let me know about that.

I think Japan have made a great evolution. I think that Philippe Blain as a coach made a great job there. The team become better and better. And I like it. Why? It's showing that you have to invest in a team and keep working. And that's what Blain was doing there. A long-term project maybe started eight years ago. And it's still growing. I expect Japan to even be better next year. And the year after because it's still a young team. So, I think Japan are for the next years. Without any doubts, I think the next three, four years, Japan will be the number one team of Asia, the team to beat. They did a very smart job and they get a reward for that.

Not in the 2024 Olympics because they missed the chance to go for medals. But they get a reward in VNL and in general, you see how good they play. So, I think Japan are clear number one of Asia in this moment. So, I'm not thinking about China beating against Japan. That is nothing for the moment.

You led European teams Belgium, Poland and Germany and now you are working in Asia. What's the difference?

I mean every country is different. I think I'm not so bad in always adapting to the culture of every country. Poland is different from Belgium. And Germany is also different from Poland. So that's very normal every national team ask something different. And, of course, China are again different from those three. And it's my challenge to try to work with every country. You know that I always like to read books about countries before I go there. I try to learn some of the language. I try to speak to a lot of people. I try to understand so that the way I work is adapted to the country. And that's always the challenge. I believe that I'm not so bad in adapting to the country. So, I think China is in a way different that I have to learn. We are much busy with learning to win. China have good players but have no culture of winning. And the big challenge is to learn them to win. So, that is the whole concept where we are busy with making them win things. And we did a huge step by winning this tournament for the VNL Challenger. Maybe it's not so big tournament for the outside world but here for China and for us it's very important to finally win a tournament. So that was the first step and now our challenge is to stay in.

You will face Iran in the near future at the helm of China team. As a person, who has played with Iran for several times, what's your strategy against the Persians?

How I will play against Iran? I'm not thinking so much about Iran because I think that Iran will have a very good team. They have good players and they will play better in VNL next year than last year. So, Iran are not our opponents where we are thinking about to stay in VNL. Our goal is to win at least a couple of matches so that we stay in VNL. But my tactic against Iran is I have no idea. I have no idea. I have no idea what to answer on that. My tactic is to make China good again. That's always the basic tactic. Make your own team play well. If you don't play well yourself, you cannot talk about the others. So, there we are working very very very hard here in China to make the team play better and better.

As you know, Iran failed to advance to the 2024 Olympics. As a volleyball instructor, what is your suggestion for the volleyball federation of Iran for the future?

I am optimistic on the future of Iran. I mean I think you have a great future in front of you. You have so many good young guys. I witnessed the U20 Asian Championship in Indonesia, where Iran claimed the title. Seeing them win that tournament they were before making great results on other youth tournaments. So, Iran is the future of Asia. Japan is the actual best and Iran is the future. And I don't know where China is standing there. So, I think that Iran has to stay cool. That's maybe the most difficult for Iran to stay cool and keep working. That should be the big challenge for them. That's an offer.