Araujo is blocked if the reception is shaken, Villena explodes if the reception is not shaken

[마이데일리 = 김희수 기자] We have to hold on to protect our team's ace. We also have to shake to block the opponent team's ace.

Woori Card will play the third round of men's Jin Air 2025-2026 V-League against KB Insurance at Jangchung Gymnasium in Seoul on Monday. The Korean men's team should avoid losing consecutive games and seek to leap to the mid-ranked team again.

This is the first game in which the two teams will face off in Jangchung for the first time this season. Both of the previous two games were played at Kyungmin University, and they shared one win each other. KB Insurance won 3-1 in the first round, and Woori Card paid back with the same set score in the second round.

Looking at the records of the two teams' opponents, the attack indicators of the foreign aces of both teams, Rafael Araujo (registered name Araujo) and Andres Villena (registered name Villena), stand out. This is because it can be seen that receiving has a great influence on the performance of the two players.

Araujo had some difficulties in the KB Insurance match. He recorded an attack success rate of 47.56 percent, about 3 percent below the average of 50.73 percent for the other five teams. However, the real problem is open attack. Araujo's success rate in open attacks against the remaining five teams is 44.63%, but it is falling to 29.63% in the KB Insurance match. In other words, Araujo was unable to drill a high ball against KB Insurance in a situation where the receiving was shaky.

On the contrary, Villena has good attack index in the match against Woori Card. The attack success rate is 55.22 percent, which is more than 3 percent higher than the average record of 51.93 percent against the other five teams. In particular, the success rate of the quick open is shocking. It is recording a whopping 70.83 percent. It has a huge success rate, which is more than 10 percent different from the record of 58.18 percent against the other five teams. In other words, if Woori Card fails to shake KB Insurance with its serve, Villena can bomb Woori Card with a setting ball.

As for the home team Woori Card, the victory is seen only when it holds out the receiving as much as possible to reduce the situation in which ace Araujo has to hit a high ball, and shake the opponent as a sub to reduce the frequency of Villena hitting the setting ball. If there is anything hopeful about Woori Card, Woori Card is ahead in receiving efficiency (27.1% of Woori Card - 21.71% of KB Insurance) and sub-scores per set (1.75 Woori Card – 1.63 KB Insurance).

What about the Liberos who control the keys to both teams' receptions? Oh Jae-sung, the libero player of Woori Card, recorded 35.14 percent of receiving efficiency in the match against KB Insurance. The figure is more than 9 percent lower than the 44.7 percent record against the other five teams. We cannot rule out the possibility that Kim Young-joon, who showed good performance this season, will appear in the receiving situation.

KB Insurance's Libero Kim Do-hoon had difficulties in the opponent's match due to Oh Jae-sung or higher. The receiving efficiency was only 22.22 percent in the match against Woori Card. You can see how difficult Kim Do-hoon played in the match against Woori Card when compared with 40.19 percent, the record against the other five teams. Unlike Woori Card, which can take out Kim Young-joon's card, KB Insurance has virtually no Libero card to replace Kim Do-hoon. It is KB Insurance that Kim Do-hoon needs to overcome hardships to win.

Whose receptions will be stronger? And how will those receptions revive the ace? An interesting game is just around the corner.