By Ray Chang
With the dwindling of the 2025 summer season’s sweltering temperatures, the transition from summer to autumn also marks the champions of this year’s Volleyball Nations League—an annual and splendid competition that brings together the strongest nations in the sport of volleyball. Spanning from mid-June to early August, this year’s VNL presented fairly consistent results as the powerhouse countries of international volleyball took their spot well according to their global ranking. Poland, Italy, and Brazil, the top-ranked men’s teams in the world currently, were the very same teams that seized the podium in the very same order. As for women’s teams, powerhouse nations like Italy, Brazil, and Turkey secured spots in the table of 8. Aside from the relatively consistent results from this year’s VNL in both the men’s and women’s leagues, there was an instance of an underdog in the men’s league. Although the Chinese men’s team placed second to last in the preliminary rounds, the Chinese managed to squeeze into the eighth spot at the end of the competition. The men’s China team currently ranks 26th in the world, but their underdog run was definitely a thing to note during this year’s successful and entertaining VNL that gathered diverse teams and spectators around the world.