In the grand scheme of things, most people would say that winning a bronze medal in a top international competition is quite an accomplishment for a national sports team.

But for the U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team, which has finished no higher than third in a major competition since the 2015 FIVB World Cup and has taken home bronze at the 2015 World League, 2016 Rio Olympics, 2018 Volleyball Nations League, and 2018 World Championships, bronze is starting to feel like a curse. 

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“At the end of the 2018 season, I think there were some mixed feelings,” setter and five-year national team veteran Kawika Shoji said. “I think we played some amazing volleyball. Some of the best volleyball we’ve ever played, but we took home two bronze medals in VNL and the World Championships and I think we wanted a little bit more.”

“We’re not satisfied with third,” team captain Taylor Sander added. “We need to continue to try and get in that gold medal match and give ourselves chances to win.”

The U.S. men undoubtedly played some incredible volleyball in 2018. At VNL, they swept Serbia and Poland (twice) and beat Brazil in straight sets in the bronze-medal match. At World Champs, they went undefeated all the way to the second match of the third round, winning nine matches in a row. 

“It’s one or two points, it’s not much at all,” Shoji said when asked about the difference between playing for bronze and playing for gold. “Little bit of extra focus, maybe a little bit more attention to some details. But we were right there.”

A veteran core has led this team since that gold medal at the World Cup in 2015: pin hitters Matt Anderson, Aaron Russell, and Sander; setters Shoji and Micah Christenson; middles Max Holt and David Smith; and liberos Erik Shoji and Dustin Watten. But since the bronze medal in Rio, long-time national team stalwarts David Lee, Reid Priddy, Murphy Troy, Paul Lotman, and Russell Holmes have retired. In their place, Speraw has brought in various young super stars, including Long Beach Staters Josh Tuaniga, TJ DeFalco, and Kyle Ensing, as well as BYU alums Ben Patch, Jake Langlois, and Brenden Sander. And don’t forget middles Jeff Jendryk, Mitch Stahl, and Taylor Averill. 

Even with this influx of talent, height, and athleticism, forward progress has halted in the semifinals for Team USA, but there’s something to be said of the team’s ability to win bronze-medal matches. Not every team or athlete is capable of turning around from the crushing disappointment of losing in the semifinals to finish on the podium.

“Against Serbia for bronze it just came down to a lot of grit, finding the energy within ourselves to compete, supporting each other emotionally,” Kawika Shoji said of last year’s World Championships performance. “It was a really down time after the Poland match, after that loss, so we had to come together as a group and just find it. We were really aggressive from the service line and defensively and we were able to win the bronze.”

Speraw highlighted good team culture and chemistry as strengths of his team, characteristics that have certainly played a role in allowing the team to earn redemption in bronze-medal matches, instead of leaving tournaments empty-handed. Perhaps finishing fourth at the 2017 World League and 2017 Grand Champions Cup taught the team that bronze is better than nothing.

“After difficult losses and during difficult moments, I think that we just have a lot of grit. We have a lost of trust in each other, “ Shoji said. “It’s really not easy. It takes a special team, a special group of guys to come back after such big disappointments, and that’s a really great character about this team. Now, hopefully we don’t have to do that all the time because we want to be playing for gold medals and that’s what we’re going to do this summer.”

“To be able to get in a medal match and perform is overall something that will help us eventually get over the hump and make us more comfortable when it comes to that semifinal match,” Sander, who will serve as team captain at VNL, said. “For us, we just want to kind of redeem ourselves after losing and leave it all out there. I know it’s frustrating to lose, but the chance to compete, the change to represent our country is much bigger than losing the semifinal.”

As they kick off the 2019 season, hoping to break the bronze-medal curse, plenty of other national team programs will pose a stiff challenge to that goal.

“There are a number of countries that are the biggest competition for USA, just because there is so much depth out there,” Speraw said. “Obviously Poland, returning defending World Champs. Brazil was in the final against them. We played Serbia in the bronze-medal match, they’re excellent. Russia, we beat them in the Final Round, but they are an incredibly young and big, talented team. We’ve always had great matches against France, we lost to them in the semifinals of VNL last year and they’re a very, very skilled, highly skilled, wonderfully defensive team. 

“I’m sure I’m missing somebody that is really great. Italy. Gosh, Italy, of course, we’ve had some incredible battles with them over the years.”

This is a unique year, for a couple of reasons. Number one, the U.S. is hosting the men’s VNL Final Round, so Team USA is guaranteed a spot and does not have to qualify in the traditional way by finishing in the top five at the end of pool play. That gives Speraw and his staff the freedom to experiment with lineups and get his young players some valuable experience.

Secondly, while gold medals at the 2019 VNL and 2019 World Cup in Japan would be major accomplishments and are certainly goals for the team, ultimately, the U.S. men are chasing their first Olympic gold since 2008. The first step on the road to Tokyo is to qualify, and they’ll get a chance to do just that Aug. 9-11 in the Netherlands, where USA joins the host, Belgium, and Korea for a single round-robin pool.

“I’m hungry,” Sander said. “I want to win VNL, and I want to qualify for the Olympics, and I want to win World Cup. I’m motivated, and I’m sure all of us are motivated. I remember after finishing the World Championships last year, you just want to be able to start again and get that fire back so that you can kind of redeem yourself. 

“We’re tired of finishing in third place, and I’ll be honest, it just makes us hungrier to get in that gold-medal match and to win.”

Tune in to see Team USA begin its pursuit of the first gold medal of 2019. VNL kicks off May 31, with the Final Six taking place July 10-14 in Chicago. Every match live streams right here on FloVolleyball.