Nagano looking to continue undefeated in SV.League Week Two

The only team to go undefeated in the opening week of the 2025-2026 men’s Daido Life SV.League, the Nagano Tridents will try to continue collecting victories in the Japanese League this weekend, when the second leg of regular season matches will be held in the country.

Sitting at the top of the standings, the team from Nagano will again be at home, this time facing the Wolfdogs Nagoya in a pair of matches - the teams face off on Saturday, at 14:05 local time (5:05 UTC), and on Sunday, one hour earlier.

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Nagano started their campaign with back-to-back home victories against the Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers last weekend. The promising start to the season was somewhat surprising for the team after they finished ninth in 2024-2025 with only ten wins in 44 matches and weren't as aggressive as most of their rivals in the transfer market.

One of their new additions, 25-year-old Canadian opposite Matthew Neaves was in top form against Sakai, producing 43 points across the two matches. Danish outside hitter Oskar Madsen, another new face to the team, and outside hitter Yuji Kudo, who starts his fourth season in Nagano, also had important roles in the team's early success, producing 36 and 35 points, respectively.

Their opponents Nagoya were very close to also getting two victories in the opening week, falling to the Hiroshima Thunders in the tie-breaker on Saturday and getting a sweep the next day. Japanese national team star opposite Kento Miyaura was their most productive player, with 30 points scored.

Last season, the teams met six times and Nagoya won five of them. That was, in fact, Nagano's only victory in the 24 encounters between the teams held since 2019.

Sakai go for their first victory against Hiroshima

After dropping their first two matches to Nagano last week, Sakai are the only winless team in the SV.League yet, and they will look to change that this weekend against Hiroshima, which split victories with Nagoya. The teams meet for the first time on Saturday, at 16:05 (7:05 UTC), and do it again on Sunday, at 13:05 (4:05 UTC).

The duels will feature two American players from different generations, with Olympic medalist Matt Anderson representing Sakai and up-and-coming outside hitter Cooper Robinson defending Hiroshima. Other international stars involved in the duel are Japanese setter Masaki Oya on Sakai's side and Brazilian opposite Felipe Roque for Hiroshima.

The other three duels of the second leg of the regular season will all feature teams that secured a win and a loss in the first week of the season, with the Suntory Sunbirds Osaka facing the Tokyo Great Bears, the Osaka Bluteon hosting Voreas Hokkaido and the JTEKT Stings Aichi going against the Toray Arrows Shizuoka.

Men’s SV.League 2025-2026 2nd leg:
November 1, 13:05 local (4:05 UTC): Suntory Sunbirds Osaka v Tokyo Great Bears
November 1, 14:05 local (5:05 UTC): Nagano Tridents v Wolfdogs Nagoya
November 1, 14:05 local (5:05 UTC): Osaka Bluteon v Voreas Hokkaido
November 1, 16:05 local (7:05 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Hiroshima Thunders
November 2, 13:05 local (4:05 UTC): Suntory Sunbirds Osaka v Tokyo Great Bears
November 2, 13:05 local (4:05 UTC): Nagano Tridents v Wolfdogs Nagoya
November 2, 13:05 local (4:05 UTC): Nippon Steel Sakai Blazers v Hiroshima Thunders
November 2, 14:05 local (5:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Toray Arrows Shizuoka
November 2, 14:05 local (5:05 UTC): Osaka Bluteon v Voreas Hokkaido
November 3, 14:05 local (5:05 UTC): JTEKT Stings Aichi v Toray Arrows Shizuoka

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