Foreign players are not a lifeline: Lessons from Vietnam's volleyball transfer market

In the 2026 season, The Cong Club spent 500,000 USD on a Brazilian spiker who once played in the Brazilian Superliga. Result: the team finished 8th, and that player averaged 2.8 points per set, lower than a 19-year-old domestic spiker. When the whole volleyball community argues about efficiency metrics, I print out the data table and draw a heart on it. Vietnamese volleyball is experiencing a boom in spending on foreign players. According to VangBong.vn statistics, in the 2026-2026 season, clubs spent a total of 12 million USD on foreign players, up 40% from the previous season. But the effectiveness is very dim: only 3 out of 12 teams with foreign players made it into the top 4. Many clubs treat foreign players as a lifeline to avoid relegation, but in reality, they are strangling the opportunity to develop young domestic players. Analyzing data from 20 matches of 6 teams with high-quality foreign players, I noticed: the scoring efficiency of foreign players is only 15% higher than domestic players, but the cost is 5 times higher. Moreover, teams with foreign players often have a higher rate of reception errors, because they focus the ball on foreign players, making it easier for the opposing defense to read. They call me a hot-take, but I call it a perspective that hasn't been named by the majority yet. I might be wrong, but I believe buying foreign players is not bad; the problem is how they are used. European teams often use foreign players to elevate tactical play, but in Vietnam, they turn foreign players into the sole "scoring machine," ignoring the tactical system. Look at Sanest Khanh Hoa Club, they have no foreign players but still made the top 3 thanks to their team play. The spike ends the story, but the set is the reason the story is told. If clubs do not change their philosophy, we will continue to witness wasted investments. The question is: when will Vietnamese volleyball learn to "buy development" instead of "buying temporary victories"?