International volleyball round-up: Two Japanese women's teams stay unbeaten as Poland and Italy enter their first trophy weekend

Of the four opening matches in Japan's women's volleyball league, two were pushed to a fifth set. Denso Airybees Koriyama beat Saitama Ageo Medics 3-0 and then 3-2 away from home. A week earlier, defending champions Saga Hisamitsu Springs defeated Aleeza Aichi 3-1 and 3-2 on a historic away trip to Thailand. Both teams are unbeaten after two rounds. This Friday and Saturday, Denso host Saga at the Horaiya Bonds Arena.

The three names most often mentioned at Denso are opposite Myat Yee Mon, Colombian outside hitter Amanda Coneo and Brazilian setter Roberta Ratzke. For Saga, Latvian opposite Marta Levinska is the one setting the tone. Last season Hisamitsu Springs won all four meetings with the Airybees, though the most recent one needed five sets to be settled.

I have not forgotten the day the stands were dazzling for the men's game while the girls had to wait until late at night to be shown on air. Women's volleyball in Japan is different now: two unbeaten teams meet as early as the third round, in an arena carrying a sponsor's name, on the two finest evenings of the week. But the way people tell the story has barely changed. The bulletin still calls it a two-match pairing, still counts the score before it counts the people.

The men's league opened last week with exactly one two-match pairing. Tokyo Great Bears, the top contender, were dragged to a fifth set by rookies Hokkaido Yellow Stars, then won the second match 3-0 behind Bartosz Kurek (Poland), Jan Kozamernik (Slovenia), Masahiro Yanagida and Luciano Vicentin (Argentina). This round the Great Bears travel to the Entrio to face Wolfdogs Nagoya, fourth last season and Emperor's Cup winners, who have Kento Miyaura, setter Hideomi Fukatsu, Polish middle Norbert Huber, plus three new arrivals in Jenia Grebennikov (libero, France), Anton Brehme (middle, Germany) and Donovan Dzavoronok (outside, Czech Republic). Last season the two sides met six times and split the wins three apiece.

In Poland, the women's Super Cup is the focus of the week: Budowlani Lodz, national champions and cup winners, meet DevelopRes Rzeszow, the reigning Super Cup holders, on Saturday in Czestochowa. It is a rematch of last season's final, which went to a fifth and deciding match. DevelopRes are unbeaten after three rounds and lead the table at 3-0 with Julita Piasecka, Marrit Jasper and Laura Jansen (Netherlands) and Taylor Mims (USA) in the squad. Budowlani sit fifth at 2-1 with Maja Storck (Switzerland), Romania captain Rodica Buterez, Slovenian middle Sasa Planinsec, run by the experienced setter Katarzyna Wenerska. Last season the two clubs met eight times and Lodz won five: one in the regular season, one in the Polish Cup semi-finals and three in the championship series.

On Sunday, in the same city, the men's Super Cup: BOGDANKA LUK Lublin, trophy holders and Polish Cup winners, face Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie, the reigning national champions. Warta parade an imposing line-up: Portuguese setter Miguel Tavares, opposites Bartlomiej Boladz and Italy international Kamil Rychlicki, outside hitters Tomasz Fornal, Bartosz Kwolek and Aaron Russell (USA), middles Jakub Kochanowski and Mateusz Bieniek, and libero Jakub Popiwczak. Last season was their best ever: bronze at the Club World Championship, silver in the Champions League and the club's first national title. Yet this season they opened with a 0-3 defeat to newly promoted GKS Katowice before beating ZAKSA Kedzierzyn-Kozle. Lublin are no less formidable: Wilfredo Leon, Bulgarian middle Aleks Grozdanov, Kewin Sasak, Marcin Komenda, plus Japanese newcomers Ran Takahashi and Tomohiro Ogawa; they lead the table on the back of two 3-0 wins over ZAKSA and Energa Trefl Gdansk. Last season Warta won five of seven PlusLiga meetings with Lublin, including three in the final.

In Italy, the second round of the SuperLega opens with Itas Trentino against Cisterna, two teams that won 3-0 in the first round. Trentino swept Valsa Group Modena away, with French opposite Theo Faure scoring 23 points alongside Riccardo Sbertoli, Alessandro Michieletto, Daniele Lavia, Flavio Gualberto (Brazil), Aleksandar Nedeljkovic (Serbia) and libero Gabriele Laurenzano. Cisterna surprised visitors Allianz Milan with a 3-0 home win built around 35-year-old Filippo Lanza and 19-year-old Noa Duflos-Rossi on the wings, climbing to the top of the standings. Last season Trentino shut out Cisterna in both meetings.

One detail easily missed: the eleventh-round TAURON Liga fixture between PGE Projekt Warsaw and Warta has been moved to next Wednesday because Warta are playing the Club World Championship in December. Projekt, medallists in each of the last three seasons, have Jan Firlej, Italian opposite Yuri Romano, Aleksander Sliwka, Bartosz Bednorz, Kevin Tillie (France), Bartlomiej Lemanski, Karol Klos, Yurii Semeniuk (Ukraine) and libero Damian Wojtaszek. Last season the capital side swept both meetings with Warta in straight sets and lead the all-time league head-to-head 14-9.

Looking across all four leagues, one thing stands out: the real strength of a volleyball team lies in whether its setter knows exactly where his hitters will be standing in the fifth set, and that is something transfer money cannot buy in a single evening. At Denso, Ratzke is the one setting the rhythm for Coneo and Myat Yee Mon. At Nagoya, Fukatsu is the thread linking Miyaura with Huber and Brehme. At Budowlani, Wenerska has to learn three new faces inside one season. At Warta, Tavares holds the most expensive attacking corps in Europe, yet he was the one exposed when the first-pass line collapsed against Katowice. The two five-set matches at the start of Japan's women's league tell the same story: new imports need time to read their setter, and the setter needs time to read them.

People tell me I write too personally. But I believe it is precisely that personal angle that makes a voice. What matters here is not whether Warta are stronger than last season. The blind spot is the data system: public stat sheets count points scored and blocks made, yet hardly ever publish the full quality of first-pass reception and the distribution rate per hitter. Because that data is missing, when a team is presented as stronger than ever and then loses 0-3 to a promoted side, spectators have no way of understanding what happened. All they are left with is the feeling of having been sold a story. The rescheduled match is the same: the domestic calendar is bending around a club world championship staged in December, which is to say bending around contracts and money, not around the people who bought tickets at the start of the season.

What I value most in women's volleyball is not the victories but the way they rise again each time prejudice knocks them down. In Czestochowa this weekend a first trophy of the season will find its owner, and people will again talk about stars, about contracts, about the numbers on the advertising boards. I am waiting to see whether the organisers dare publish the indicators that actually decide matches, or whether they will leave the audience guessing in the dark for another season.