Two home sides go into these matches with a damaged unit on the very part of the game their opponent attacks. Viettel come to Seoul without a head coach and with a depleted squad, and their attack has barely tested anyone in this competition. KB Stars have lost an outside hitter and are relying on a makeshift passing line against an opponent whose main weapon is the serve. Both matches come down to whether the weaker unit holds.
Seoul won the first leg in Hanoi 5-0 and were already two up by the 21st minute. The players who did that damage, Anderson and Moon out wide and Ruiz and Hwang arriving from deeper, either rested or played only briefly at the weekend. The players more likely to be rotated are the ones who played the full 90. Coach Kim has said any rotation will stay limited and that he wants to win both games, because Seoul still need points for the top two.
Viettel are now led by their goalkeeping coach on an interim basis and are nine games without a win. They managed two shots on target in the first leg and one at Persib. With their attack this thin, the main limit on the margin is how hard Seoul keep pushing. If Seoul score early, Viettel have to come out, and that opens the space Seoul's runners used in Hanoi. That's why I'm siding with Seoul to win comfortably.
In the volleyball, KB released Tarusha at the end of October and have no replacement. That leaves Na, Hong and Yoon receiving serve, and Samsung beat that passing line on the first of November. Busan OK made serving their big preseason upgrade, with Russell and Payzamdoust behind the line. When KB's pass breaks down, the ball goes to Linus out of system, and OK's block, with players of 202, 207 and 201 centimetres, is built for that.
KB lost every close set late against Samsung to blocks and their own errors, and their coach called it a pattern. They have not won two sets in any of their three matches this season. OK can build big leads in a set with a run of serves, as they did against Hyundai and Korean Air in the cup. I expect OK to pull clear in at least one set and KB to make the late errors in the tight ones. That's why I'm backing Busan OK on the road.
