UPDATE: Europe will be represented by the following teams at the 2014 World Championship: Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria, France, Serbia & Finland. Poland has qualified as the host together with 2013 European Champions Russia and silver medalist Italia.
The following teams have already qualified for the 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship: Poland (host), Argentina, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia and Italy.
Pool I: Cyprus, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Czech Republic (host)
Jan 3rd:
Bulgaria 3-0 Cyprus
The Netherlands 3-0 Czech Rep
Jan 4th:
Bulgaria 3-0 The Netherlands
Cyprus vs Czech Rep
Pool J: Portugal, Former Y.R. of Macedonia, Slovenia & Serbia (host)
Jan 3rd:
Slovenia 3-1 Portugal
Serbia 3-0 FYR Macedonia
Jan 4th:
Portugal 3-0 FYR Macedonia
Serbia vs Slovenia
Pool K: Croatia, Estonia, Turkey & Germany (host)
Jan 3rd:
Germany 3-0 Croatia
Turkey 3-0 Estonia
Jan 4th:
Germany 3-0 Estonia
Turkey vs Croatia
Pool L: Belarus, Belgium, Spain & France (host)
Jan 3rd:
France 3-1 Belarus
Spain 0-3 Belgium
Jan 4th:
France 3-0 Spain
Belgium vs Belarus
Pool M: Greece, Slovakia, Ukraine & Finland (host)
Jan 3rd:
Slovakia 3-0 Greece
Ukraine vs Finland
Jan 4th:
Slovakia vs Ukraine
Greece vs Finland
Slovakia Wants To Write History…
Released by cev.lu on January 2nd, 2014:
Everything is ready in Poprad, the Slovak city that this weekend will be hosting one of five third-round qualifiers to the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championships – Poland 2014. The home heroes will be playing Finland, Greece, and Ukraine there at the foot of the High Tatras as they try to make the Final Round of the World Champs for the first time in history.
This will also be the debut of Italian-born head coach Flavio Gulinelli at the helm of the Slovak national team after he replaced Stefan Chrtiansky, under whose guidance Slovakia finished in eleventh place at the 2013 CEV Volleyball European Championship co-hosted by Denmark and Poland last September. “We started our preparations shortly before Christmas and for a few days we basically got to know each other” says the 54-year old Gulinelli. “I can only say that my players worked really hard and have showed a lot of professionalism during our preparations. I am happy with the attitude they have showed. We only had a very short time to prepare but I think that we are ready for this tournament” he adds.
As they were gearing up for this home qualifier, Slovakia beat the Czech Republic twice and always in straight sets. “I was happy with the result but especially with the quality we showed in these matches” Gulinelli stresses. “Anyway, we need to play better than we did with the Czechs if we want to make it to the World Champs. I can’t guarantee that we will achieve this goal but I can surely guarantee that we will be doing our best to make it there.”
Slovakia started their preparations for this tournament with all of their stars playing abroad, including wing-spiker Lukas Divis, middle-blocker Tomas Kmet, and setter Branislav Skladany. “Everyone says Finland will be our toughest opponent but in order to finish atop the charts we also need to win our games with Greece and Ukraine. And this is not going to be that easy. Greece has a very good and experienced team and their players have been playing at the highest international level for quite some time. As for Ukraine, most of their players have been together since the start of the season playing in the Russian Superleague for the likes of Lokomotiv KHARKIV, so this can be their advantage. It won’t be easy for us here in Poprad” concludes Gulinelli who also coaches Ural UFA in Russia’s national league.
The home heroes will rely on the support of their fans to write history and make the Worlds for the first time since Slovakia’s independence in 1993. Poprad is a city with a long tradition in Volleyball and the local people are fond of the sport. “We like playing in Poprad because the fans always come to see our matches and that is a big boost for us” says libero Roman Ondrusek. “What’s more we always have achieved good results here in Poprad and have won many important games, so this is quite a good omen ahead of this tournament” he concludes.
Click here for more info about the tournament coming up in Poprad
Coach Tillie Makes The Final Cut…
Released by cev.lu on January 2nd, 2014:
On Thursday, with only 24 hours left before the start of the home tournament where his players will try to book a ticket to the Final Round of the 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship, France’s head coach Laurent Tillie announced the names of the 12 players retained for the qualifier taking place at the Carpentier hall in Paris.
Setter Benjamin Toniutti will be the captain of a group whose average age stands at 25. The last players to be cut by Tillie were Nicolas Rossard and Franck Lafitte.
“It was not easy at all to make this choice” Tillie says. “Nicolas and Franck have contributed a lot to our preparations which lasted for the last couple of weeks. However, the experience of other guys did count in the end. I have been very surprised by these players who got integrated into the group very quickly. They contributed a lot of energy to the team on our way to this tournament” Tillie adds.
This weekend France is set to play Belarus, Spain, and Belgium as the team will be trying to exploit the home advantage in order to make the Final Round of the 2014 Worlds in Poland. The winners of the five third-round qualifiers plus the second-placed team with the best score across all Pools will complete the European contingent for the Championship thereby joining hosts Poland plus the gold and silver medalists from the 2013 European Championship, Russia and Italy.
The 12 players nominated by Tillie for the home qualifier in Paris are: Jénia Grebennikov, Gérald Hardy-Dessources, Nicolas Le Goff, Kévin Le Roux, Julien Lyneel, Earvin Ngapeth, Rafael Redwitz, Antonin Rouzier, Mory Sidibé, Kévin Tillie, Benjamin Toniutti, and Samuele Tuia
Click here for more information about the tournament coming up in Paris.
Finland On Track To Qualify After 30 Years…
Released by cev.lu on December 29th, 2013:
Finland will be trying to make it to the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championships for the first time in more than 30 years via the third-round qualifier scheduled through January 3-5 in Poprad, Slovakia. Their head coach Tuomas Sammelvuo failed five times to achieve this goal during his long competitive career but this time wants to break that negative trend.
Sammelvuo is confident that Finland stands a good chance to make it to the World Champs coming up next September in Poland. “The team is feeling good and all players are in a great shape. We only had a very short time to prepare for the World Champs qualifier, but everything went good. A place for the Final Round of the World Champs is our only goal” Sammelvuo says.
The Finns first got together in Kuortane before they traveled to Ljubljana to play two friendly matches with Slovenia at the Tivoli hall. Through January 3-5 Finland will then play Ukraine, Greece, and hosts Slovakia for a spot in the Final Round of the World Championships. “We are going to play three tough teams but they all are within our reach. Ukraine and especially Greece remain big question marks to me at the moment” Sammelvuo adds, recalling that the final lists of 12 players will be known only on the eve of the first competition day.
The Finnish mentor can count on some experienced players including Mikko Esko and Olli Kunnari who are embarking on their third attempt to make the Worlds. Nine out of 12 players have already registered more than 100 caps with the national team. On the other hand, there are four rookies who never played the World Champs qualification before: setter Eemi Tervaportti, libero Lauri Kerminen, and wing-spikers Elviss Krastins and Niklas Seppänen. The other players retained by coach Sammelvuo for the World Champs qualifier in Poprad are: Mikko Esko, Matti Oivanen, Jukka Lehtonen, Konstantin Shumov, Olli-Pekka Ojansivu, Urpo Sivula, Olli Kunnari, and Antti Siltala.
The last time Finland played at the World Championship was in 1982 as the group around Heikki Montonen finished 17th at the competition held in Argentina (Rosario and Buenos Aires).
The 1 Year Countdown…
Released by fivb.org on September 13th, 2013:
The final countdown to the 2014 Men’s Volleyball World Championship has begun and in just one year’s time, all attention will be on Poland as it hosts the tournament for the first time in its history.
Poland is no stranger to hosting high level volleyball events, having staged the FIVB World League Finals in 2010, 2007 and 2001 in addition to age-group World Championships and the inaugural edition of the World Cup. Despite the Polish men’s team having won the World Championship title in 1974 and finishing second in 2006, at no stage have they hosted the key event.
The championship will feature 24 teams of which only the hosts are automatically qualified. The volleyball matches of are scheduled to take place in the arenas of the following six cities:
– Hala Luczniczka (Bydgoszcz)
– Ergo Arena (Sopot/Gdansk)
– Spodek (Katowice)
– Atlas Arena (Lodz)
– Hala Czyzyny (Krakow)
– Hala Stulecia (Wroclaw)
Argentina and Brazil were the first to qualify for the 2014 Men’s World Championship and other Confederations have already begun their qualifying process.
Volleyball in Poland has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity over the last few years. Gdansk hosted the spectacular 2011 World League Finals where the Polish men’s team finished third and a year later Katowice hosted one of the best-ever FIVB World League preliminary round weekends. Poland also hosted the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships 2013.
The FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship takes place every four years and the 2010 edition was hosted by Italy where Brazil secured their third straight title. In fact the Brazilian men’s team and the Russian women’s team have claimed the gold medals at the last two editions (2010 and 2006) of the FIVB World Championships. The FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship will take place next year in Italy and will start on September 23, 2014.
The winner of next year’s Men’s World Championship will qualify for the FIVB Volleyball World Cup in 2015, which is the first Olympic qualification event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Click here for the latest press releases from CEV.LU
Click here for the latest press releases from FIVB.ORG
(images: cev.lu/ fivb/ worksltd.co.uk)
Take note, the rosters listed below are either final rosters (12 players) or the preliminary rosters.
Belgium
Setters: Depestele, Verschueren
Middle Blockers: Van de Voorde, Verhees, Coolman, Heyrman
Outside Hitters: Deroo, Verhanneman, Klinkenberg, Claes
Opposite Hitters: Van den Dries, G. Van Walle
Liberos: Derkoningen
Bulgaria
Setters: Georgi Bratoev, Andrey Zhekov
Middle Blockers: Nikolay Nikolov, Teodor Todorov, Viktor Yosifov
Outside Hitters: Todor Aleksiev, Todor Skrimov, Nikolay Penchev, Valentin Bratoev
Opposites: Tsvetan Sokolov, Danail Milushev
Libero: Teodor Salparov
Finland
Setters: Mikko Esko, Eemi Tervaportti, Ville Juntura, Antti Esko
Middle Blockers: Jukka Lehtonen, Konstantin Shumov, Matti Oivanen, Tommi Siirilä, Samuli Kaislasalo
Outside Hitters: Antti Siltala, Olli Kunnari, Niklas Seppänen, Elviss Krastins, Toni Kankaanpää, Eemeli Kouki
Opposite Hitters: Urpo Sivula, Mikko Oivanen (also OH), Olli-Pekka Ojansivu, Ville Sorvoja
Liberos: Lauri Kerminen, Juho Rajala, Jesse Mäntylä
France
Setters: Rafaël Redwitz, Benjamin Toniutti
Middle Blockers: Gérald Hardy-Dessources, Nicolas Le Goff, Kevin Le Roux
Outside Hitters: Julien Lyneel, Earvin Ngapeth, Kévin Tillie, Samuele Tuia
Opposite Hitters: Antonin Rouzier, Mory Sidibé
Liberos: Jenia Grebennikov
Germany
Setters: Lukas Kampa, Sebastian Kühner
Middle Blockers: Marcus Böhme, Tim Broshog, Philipp Collin
Outside Hitters: Denis Kaliberda, Sebastian Schwarz, Christian Fromm
Opposite Hitters: Jochen Schöps, Georg Grozer
Liberos: Ferdinand Tille, Markus Steuerwald
The Netherlands
Setters: Nimir Abdelaziz, Yannick van Harskamp.
Middle Blockers: Wytze Kooistra, Thomas Koelewijn, Bas van Bemmelen
Outside Hitters: Dick Kooy, Thijs ter Horst, Jeroen Rauwerdink, Robbert Andringa
Opposite Hitters: Niels Klapwijk, Tony Krolis
Libero: Gijs Jorna
Serbia
Setters: Vlado Petkovic, Nikola Jovovic, Mihajlo Mitic
Middle Blockers: Dragan Stankovic, Marko Podrascanin, Milan Rasic, Srecko Lisinac
Outside Hitters: Milos Nikic, Nikola Kovacevic, Uros Kovacevic, Marko Ivovic, Nemanja Petric
Opposite Hitters: Sasa Starovic, Aleksandar Atanasijevic, Dusan Petkovic
Liberos: Nikola Rosic, Neven Majstorovic
Turkey
Setters: Ulaş Kıyak, Yiğit Gülmezoğlu
Middle Blockers: Emre Batur, Resul Tekeli, Hakkı Çapkınoğlu, Mustafa Koç
Outside Hitters: Burutay Subaşı, Gökhan Gökgöz, Can Ayvazoğlu, Turgay Doğan
Opposite Hitters: Serhat Coşkun, Metin Toy
Liberos: Hasan Yeşilbudak, Murat Tokgöz
One Comment
Leave a Reply