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On Monday in Congress Hall in Palce of Culture and Science in Warsaw we had drawing of lots for upcoming Men's World Championships in Poland. Inaugural match will be played at National Stadium in Warsaw!
With the 24 participating teams successfully drawn across the four groups, Poland Volleyball Federation President Miroslaw Przedełski confirmed that Poland will host Serbia in the 58,000 capacity football stadium to open the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014.
The Volleyball World Championships return to an open stadium after more than sixty years. Moscow 1952 was the last time the Volleyball World Championships were played in an open stadium.
Competition's Formula:
First Round: 24 teams in 4 groups, matches will be played in following cities:
Group A: Wrocław
Group B: Katowice
Group C: Gdańsk
Group D: Kraków
Second Round: Top 4 teams from each group go to this round. Group A will play with D - Group E, while Group B will play with C - group F. Group E will play in Łódź and Bydgoszcz, group F in Katowice and Wrocław.
Third Round: Top 3 teams from each group go here and will play in Kraków (group G) and Łódź (group H). First teams will go directly to groups, while second and third ranked in groups will be drawn to pools. There will be Round Robin in each group.
Finals: Top 2 from each group will play in Final Round in Katowice.
As we can see qualification process is still running, we don't know participants from Africa (CAVB) and North America with Caribbean (NORCECA). Seeding from these federations probably will be determined by FIVB Ranking, so if we don't see any surprises during qualification games, teams qualified should be:
NORCECA: USA (1), Cuba (2), Canada (3), Puerto Rico (4), Mexico (5). Next ranked here are Dominican Republic and Bahamas.
CAVB: Tunisia (1), Egypt (2), Cameroon (3), next ranked are Morocco and Algeria.
Definitely the toughest pool from these is group D, with Italy, Iran, France, Belgium and probably USA and Puerto Rico. Here the competition should be the toughest, because even Belgium isn't an outsider.
With the 24 participating teams successfully drawn across the four groups, Poland Volleyball Federation President Miroslaw Przedełski confirmed that Poland will host Serbia in the 58,000 capacity football stadium to open the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014.
The Volleyball World Championships return to an open stadium after more than sixty years. Moscow 1952 was the last time the Volleyball World Championships were played in an open stadium.
Competition's Formula:
First Round: 24 teams in 4 groups, matches will be played in following cities:
Group A: Wrocław
Group B: Katowice
Group C: Gdańsk
Group D: Kraków
Second Round: Top 4 teams from each group go to this round. Group A will play with D - Group E, while Group B will play with C - group F. Group E will play in Łódź and Bydgoszcz, group F in Katowice and Wrocław.
Third Round: Top 3 teams from each group go here and will play in Kraków (group G) and Łódź (group H). First teams will go directly to groups, while second and third ranked in groups will be drawn to pools. There will be Round Robin in each group.
Finals: Top 2 from each group will play in Final Round in Katowice.
As we can see qualification process is still running, we don't know participants from Africa (CAVB) and North America with Caribbean (NORCECA). Seeding from these federations probably will be determined by FIVB Ranking, so if we don't see any surprises during qualification games, teams qualified should be:
NORCECA: USA (1), Cuba (2), Canada (3), Puerto Rico (4), Mexico (5). Next ranked here are Dominican Republic and Bahamas.
CAVB: Tunisia (1), Egypt (2), Cameroon (3), next ranked are Morocco and Algeria.
Definitely the toughest pool from these is group D, with Italy, Iran, France, Belgium and probably USA and Puerto Rico. Here the competition should be the toughest, because even Belgium isn't an outsider.
#Poland #WorldChampionships2014
Raylight, do you solemnly swear that, if (IF) Italy makes it to the medals, you'll stop complaining about Italy getting the easy path?
:-P
Now, apart from the stupid consideration:
I didn't like the idea of drawing the lots before knowing all qualified teams. There shouldn't be surprises, yet it wasn't elegant IMO.
I missed the qualifications... what happened in the Asian confederation? How could China do better than Japan?
Group D will be electric, only Norceca4 can't hope to get to the second phase. My guess is that none of the other 5 teams will neately prevail, the pool ranking will be very compact, all teams with not many points. Since results from the first phase will be valid during the second phase, this will create a very complicate situation in pool E. On the other hand, pool A is also quite equilibrated, even if at a lower level.
In group B, Brasil has no opponents, unless Cuba decides to put an end to all those ridiculous disqualifies and calls a real squad. Otherwise, 2013's Cuba and Canada are quite irrelevant (why does Norceca has 5 spots?!). Same stands for Russia and Bulgaria in group C.
Well, if the format was meant to avoid the host team being favoured like in 2010, it did work: despite being seed #1, Poland will have a hard time.