After the historic bronze medal achieved at the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Argentine men’s volleyball team already has the roadmap for its next great goal, the 2022 World Cup in Russia. According to what was determined by the draw developed this Thursday , the team led by Marcelo Méndez will lead group F as head of series, which will also include the Netherlands, Iran and Egypt.
Argentina, current runner-up in America and sixth in the FIVB ranking, will play its three group stage matches in Krasnoyar, a city in eastern Russia, in the heart of Siberia, more than 4200 kilometers and eight hours of flight from Moscow. The Argentine team is the favorite to win the zone, regardless of the antecedents of the rivals.
Iran, Asian champion and tenth in the world rankings, has just performed well at the Olympic Games, where it beat Venezuela and Poland, but was left out of the quarterfinals by sets difference in the tiebreaker against Canada.
The Netherlands, for its part, is fifteenth in the ranking, but did not qualify for the Tokyo Games. Their last participation in a major tournament was ninth in the 2018 World Cup in Poland. The Dutch were a power in the 90s, with a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and a silver medal in Barcelona 1992, in addition to the Silver medal at the 1994 World Cup in Greece.
Egypt, meanwhile, is a volleyball powerhouse in Africa, although it lost the qualifier to Tunisia and was not in Tokyo 2020. It is currently ranked 19th in the FIVB world rankings.
The World Cup in Russia brings together 24 teams and will be played from August 26 to September 11, 2022 in six venues. The local Russia will integrate group A with Serbia, Tunisia and Puerto Rico and will play in Saint Petersburg, the main venue. In group B are Brazil, Japan, Cuba and Qatar; in C, Poland, the United States, Mexico and Bulgaria; in D, France, Slovenia, Germany and Cameroon; and group E is made up of Italy, Canada, Turkey and China. The first two from each zone and the four best third parties qualify for the next phase.
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