Almaty, the apple city, is a truly apple-rich city.

Located at the northern foot of the Alatau Mountains, Almaty is the economic and cultural center of Central Asia, and as the capital of Kazakhstan, it is also the busiest railway and airport center in the whole of Central Asia.

Different from the earth's time and space, the Central Asian region of this time and space has been well developed because of the strong rise of the republic, as one of the radiation areas of Chinese civilization, the countries of Central Asia have become a buffer zone for the confrontation between Eastern and Western civilizations by virtue of their excellent geographical location.

As one of the member countries of the Asian Professional Volleyball League, Kazakhstan not only has its own domestic women's volleyball league, but also has created the Central Asian Women's Volleyball Super League with several small neighboring countries, which is a first-class professional competition recognized by the Asian Volleyball Federation and the World Volleyball United Nations, and its league competitiveness is no less than that of the Republic Women's Volleyball League.

The reason why Wang Lei and the Yangtze River women's volleyball team came to Almaty to play is because their opponents are teams from the Southeast Asian Women's Volleyball League.

The rules of the Asian Women's Volleyball Champions Cup are actually very simple, the whole tournament is divided into seven rounds, each round of the game is a single elimination, and each game is played in a third-party country to avoid the bias of home advantage, so that although some home box office will be lost to a certain extent, it can avoid the interference of other off-court factors, and at the same time can also improve the ratings of live TV, after all, every team that fights represents the glory of the country.

The Yangtze River women's volleyball team faced the third-place team from the Southeast Asian Women's Volleyball League in the first round of the Asian Champions Cup.

The format of the Southeast Asian Women's Volleyball League is more peculiar than the leagues of other countries, they divide the teams of their league into many levels, of which the six teams of the first three levels are eligible to participate in the Grand Champions Cup, and among them, there are three third-place teams, in terms of strength, compared with the current strength of the Yangtze River women's volleyball team.

Coming to Almaty, the Yangtze River women's volleyball team does not need to adjust too much, the altitude here is only less than 900 meters, which is easy for the mainland team to adapt, and Almaty is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the temperature and climate are relatively stable, which is an advantage for the Yangtze River women's volleyball team, after all, their opponents are from subtropical countries.

However, although the Yangtze River women's volleyball team does not have much time to adapt to the climate and environment here, they also do not have time to go out to visit this beautiful city.

Wang Lei's physical training is still continuing, and in addition to letting Coach Zhan Xiongfei arrange physical training, he also added basic movement exercises, just like he just coached the frontier youth team, he began to stare at the players to strengthen every detail, and strengthen the training of every movement.

On match day, although the match was played on a third-party court, the first round of the women's volleyball team of the Grand Champions Cup still attracted many local fans in Almaty to watch the game.

Although the most popular sports in Kazakhstan are boxing, hockey and traditional horse racing, in recent years, with the development of society, the three major ball games have begun to be loved by more and more people, and among them, volleyball has sprung up in Kazakhstan to receive a special welcome.

After Wang Lei coached the Yangtze River women's volleyball team, he did receive a lot of criticism in China, but it did not receive much attention in the whole of Asia, and the decline of the Yangtze River women's volleyball team is probably only worried about Jinling fans.

At the beginning of the game, Wang Lei let Ma Dongmei start today, she has recovered well recently, and there is no hidden injury danger in her body, plus in the face of Southeast Asian teams that are generally short in height, Wang Lei has no reason not to let Ma Dongmei, who has a height advantage, start.

After the start of the first game, the Yangtze River women's volleyball team quickly occupied the advantage by virtue of the height advantage in front of the net, their blocking and strong attack in the fourth position made the opponent tired, Ma Dongmei played very smoothly after starting in the fourth position today, she gave up the previous air forced control to play straight play, and relied more on the position and reasonable adjustment of the attack to threaten the opponent.

After a major injury, Ma Dongmei is bound to adjust her style of play, she is no longer the quasi-superstar player known as the air tyrant, but a "newcomer" who is looking forward to "rebirth".

However, although the Yangtze River women's volleyball team quickly took the lead, but the opponent was not powerless, Lin's Bank is the second largest private bank in Southeast Asia, they have rich economic strength, with the support of money, some women's volleyball players from Eastern European countries will naturally come.

There are many players from Eastern Europe in the Lin Bank women's volleyball team, but due to the regulations of the Asian Volleyball Professional League, the Lin Bank women's volleyball team can only send two non-Asian foreign players in the first game.

With the support of foreign aid, the women's volleyball team of Lin's Bank was not completely thrown off the score, they were five to six points behind, but they always maintained this point difference.

In the first game, the Yangtze River women's volleyball team won smoothly, with a score of 26-19.

After entering the second game, the Lin Bank women's volleyball team sent all three African and Asian foreign aids, plus two other Asian foreign aides from Goryeo, and they actually led the Yangtze River women's volleyball team after the start.

Wang Lei had replaced Ma Dongmei at this time, and the main attacking player on the field was Xu Yunxin.

The personal strength of Eastern European players is indeed better than that of some domestic players, after all, compared with many professional players in the Republic, their lives and careers basically have no additional security, and they must earn enough money to live after retirement while they are young, so many Eastern European players practice ball at all.

The attack of the Yangtze River women's volleyball team has indeed changed a lot compared with before, they pay more attention to team cooperation, and no longer overemphasize individual strong attacks, but in the face of the strong defense of the Lin Bank women's volleyball team, the Yangtze River women's volleyball team still has a lot of problems in this game.

Xu Yunxin, Liao Qing and Zhou Lingling's cooperation in front of the net is impressive, even Almaty fans will cheer for it, but it is a pity that their offense encountered a very strong blocking by the opponent, and after the continuous cooperative attack was stopped, the Yangtze River women's volleyball team began to be impatient.

The score reached 15-9, and after the Yangtze River women's volleyball team fell behind by six points, Wang Lei called out the team's first timeout in this game.