Heartbreaking for Redwitz!
He received the sad news that day after his 33rd birthday.
The Brazilian-French setter will no longer play at the 2014 World Championship after he and 2 more teammates, Thibault Rossard and Philippe Tuitoga, are excluded from the final 14 player roster.
Coach Tillie tells cev.lu yesterday:
“We decided to release the names of the 14 players retained for the World Championship well in advance because we were having training sessions with many players. With 15 days still to go for the start of the World Championship I needed to reduce the group and my decisions were due to be validated by this friendly match with Japan. Bearing this in mind, I decided not to line up Kévin Le Roux, Earvin Ngapeth, and Benjamin Toniutti so that all remaining players got the opportunity to join the actions. The choice was difficult because of the players’ quality and the motivation they have showed, and so it did take quite some time.
It was a very difficult decision especially as far as Rafael is concerned.
However, Yoann Jaumel can help a little more from the physical point of view, his game offers more options and I thought it would make sense to have such young player for a long and demanding competition like the World Championship. He played a good national championship, wasn’t a member of the group for the World League but he performed as I wanted during our camp. I opted for Jonas Aguenier instead of Tuitoga taking into account Jonas’ superior physical condition. And Rossard, well, he is a good talent, but a player who is still in his developing process and in his case I decided to focus on experience rather than on youth.”
2014 World Championship Roster:
Setters: Yoann Jaumel, Benjamin Toniutti
Middle-blockers: Jonas Aguenier, Franck Lafitte, Nicolas Le Goff, Kévin Le Roux
Wing-spikers: Nicolas Marechal, Earvin Ngapeth, Kévin Tillie, Samuele Tuia
Opposite: Antonin Rouzier, Mory Sidibé
Libero: Jenia Grebennikov, Nicolas Rossard
Rafael then shared his thoughts on Facebook:
=(
In case you didn’t know, the 2014 World Championship will run from August 30th to September 21st 2014. France is in Pool D with Italy, USA, Iran, Puerto Rico and Belgium.
This group looks like the “Pool Of Death” in Round 1.
(Image: Wiktoria Traskiewicz)
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